Payne, who was part of a panel filled with industry heavyweights, issued a cautionary note to sports federations given the increasingly hard commercial market in which they operate.
Said Payne: "Complacency is the biggest single threat to sportB4s commercial prowess. It is impossible to continue to grow and grow, eventually you will break the system.
"It is necessary to control what you have and constantly review. If you stop and rest on what you have built, it will come up and bite you."
For the full details of the panel discussion which included such luminaries as Jan Menneken, commercial director of the International Tennis Federation, and Richard Worth, CEO of TEAM Marketing - the commercial rights agency that handles the UEFA Champions League, see the features section of todayB4s sportbusiness.com
Michael Payne, marketing director of the IOC, has warned that complacency is the biggest single threat to sportB4s commercial prosperity, in the opening session of SportBusiness 2003 at the SportAccord conference in Madrid.
