SportBusiness.com

Published June 2005

The turnaround of the Olympics is a remarkable business story, written by the former Marketing Director of the IOC, Michael Payne. It is the story of how the nearly bankrupt Olympic Movement, written off by most commentators, was led away from the abyss by visionary, and sometimes hard-headed, leadership and the creation of a unique corporate marketing platform.

Olympic Turnaround tells for the first time how the future of one of the world's iconic institutions was secured. It is the story of a fine balancing act as an amateur organisation struggled with and eventually embraced the business world. But, it did so on its own terms, maintaining its identity, not compromising its core values.In the process, it established many of the ground rules of today's sports marketing industry.

Olympic Turnaround is also the story of the broadcast industry's love affair with sport. It charts how companies began to understand the power of sport as a marketing and promotional tool. It is also a cautionary tale of success and failure - about how some nations learned to embrace the potential of hosting the world, while others, through short-sighted local political agendas, failed to see the bigger picture.

Packed with previously untold stories and case studies, this is the commercial story of the world's most valuable and important franchise, the largest and the greatest event in the world: the Olympic Games.