Morgan:News:2010:Bronze Edition: October 2004

Friday, October 29, 2004

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Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #497
BURNABY CITY COUNCILLOR SAYS LETTER TO IOC TO QUESTION SWITCH TO BID PROCESS FOR OVAL

The Burnaby City councillor who proposed city council write a letter to the IOC protesting the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee's decision to move the speed-skating oval from Simon Fraser University to Richmond says council wants an explanation of why the oval was put out to bid, and whether the process was proper.

Sav Dhaliwal, who is also a former chair of the Burnaby Sports Hall of Fame Committee, says "We don't understand why the process was open to bidding. We were approved to have the facility, and we had an agreement with [VANOC] about it." And, he added, he doesn't buy the argument that the Olympic organizers decided to go to a bidding system because detailed investigations showed the project would have gone over budget had it been built at SFU. "This was a provincial government initiative. They should have ensure that it was properly funded. These are regional facilities; it shouldn't be up to the citizens of one municipality to fund it."

Dhaliwal also referred to a letter brought to Burnaby city council from Julian Green, a speed skating technical advisor. Green - a former Olympian and national team coach - outlined his reasons for originally choosing SFU. The main point was that the height of the venue on Burnaby Mountain would provide faster ice because of the physics involved in ice-making. Richmond's oval will be built at sea level.

The letter to the IOC from Burnaby Council will also ask whether VANOC followed proper IOC procedures when it adopted the bid-system approach.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 27, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #496
(FEATURE) ATOS ORIGIN EXPECTED TO LOOK AFTER INFO-TECHNOLGY SUPPORT FOR 2010 GAMES

A company that is likely to sign up to support the 2010 Winter Olympics in the next few months is Atos Origin, a Belgium-based firm which generates about e5 billion a year and has 50,000 employees in 50 countries. It's providing the Games technology to the Summer Olympics in Athens and the 2008 Games in Beijing, and the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy. It's expected to do so in 2010 as well.

The CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, John Furlong, says he can't yet say whether Atos will be on board, but adds, "We should be able to let you know in a few weeks."

The big information-technology firm -- which tends to play things close to the chest in part for security reasons and in part because of the MEGO factor (My Eyes Glaze Over) when it talks about what it does to most people -- has allowed a glimpse inside the Athens Technology Operations Centre it maintains. The TOC is the operational hub of the information collection and distribution mechanism set up for the Games.

And from this glimpse, one can glean some of what the company might bring to Vancouver if it signs up for the 2010 Games, bearing in mind that a Winter Games is about a third the size of a Summer Olympics.

Atos Origin says the TOC has a staff of about 100 in each of the two 12-hour shifts during the Games, and it runs 24 hours a day. Each shift runs from 7 until 7. Among them is a security staff that monitors the integrity of the system itself.

The overall operation has three other sections, besides the TOC. All IT systems, software and operations are tested for months in advance at the Integration Test Lab, which provides support during the Olympic Games. The "PC Factory" deals with configuring and securing computer systems before they're installed at the Game venues. Several data centres provide storage and backup for the Games’ IT data and systems.

The company has about 3,400 employees and volunteers in Athens who work on connecting transparently and, theoretically, seamlessly the Swatch timing technology to the judges' computer consoles and the TV screens so that an estimated audience of four billion people can see who is winning and who won in less than three-hundredths of a second. They do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Atos's Chief Technology Integrator, Claude Phillips, says the company, as part of its process leading up to a Games, runs through various scenarios, and then trains its staff and works on the software to deal with that scenario. "We can't have any improvisation during the Games. You have to have discipline and your people knowing what to do in every situation."

The company's responsible for designing, developing, testing and deploying of all the software applications that manage the Olympic Games operations and deliver information about the Games, the athletes and the events.

Atos Origin’s integration people began working on the Athens projects three years ago to test, evaluate, modify and integrate all the various applications so that all the technology can work together. Unlike some of the facilities themselves, the IT system applications were working online last November, nine months before the opening of the Games, allowing time to perform extensive live testing of the systems and how the data flowed between them.

It's not easy, although the firm has being doing it at every Olympics since the Barcelona, Spain, games in 1992, although it didn't become an International Olympic Committee TOP sponsor until 2001. The firm is currently involved in consortium of various other major technological companies that supplied the 10,500 computers (of various types, sizes and operating systems), about 1,000 servers, 23,000 land-line phones, 13,000 mobile phones, 2,500 Intranet terminals and 4,000 printers being used at Athens.

For the Torino Winter Games, which opens 532 days from now, the company says planning is well underway although visible aspects of the technology, such as parts of the official Torino website, are still not working correctly even though the pages are being served.

The firm essentially transferred the core of the team that worked on the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City to the Italian project. And, if Atos Origin signs up for 2010, this same crew will likely start arriving in Vancouver in 2007, while the Athens personnel, for the most part, will head for Beijing in the coming year. Jean Chevalier, the executive vice-president of Olympics & Major Events, says the company uses this leapfrog method for good reasons. "We capture the knowledge and successes of one Games to another one, and that is very important because what you want at the end of the day is to do things better, minimize your risk and minimize costs as well, and you can't do that unless you replay the good things."

Atos Origin is using two major information technology systems to run the Athens Games: the Information Diffusion Systems (IDS) and the Games Management Systems (GMS).

BACKGROUND
==========

The Games Management System supervises:

SPORT ENTRIES AND ATHLETES QUALIFICATION - This registers athletes in the competition events and manages country and performance quotas. It also records and presents the official qualifying times of each athlete competing in specific sports events.
MEDICAL ENCOUNTERS - This system tracks all medical encounters during the Olympic Games for statistical purposes. It generates reports for the IOC Medical Commission, Department of Health and other organizations, providing an online summary of each case history.
TRANSPORTATION - The transportation system manages equipment, schedules, and administration of the on-demand, dedicated fleet of vehicles, to get the athletes to the Games on time.
ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES - This system tracks arrivals and departures of the staff, employees, contractors and volunteers of the Olympics with the transportation department, ensuring critical logistical information on the spot.
PROTOCOL - This deals with the handling of VIPs to Olympic Game events, including services such as gift delivery, transportation and accommodation requirements, including those attending the Olympic Games and Ceremonies.
ACCREDITATION - This is the system that identifies and authorizes physical access to venues. Through an attendance list, people are identified for each events and assigned access rights to various locations at the Games.
ACCOMMODATION - This manages room allocations as part of the Hospitality Programs, which includes all the athletes and staff.
STAFF AND VOLUNTEERS MANAGEMENT - The system manages the paid and volunteer personnel working at the Games.

--

The main components of the Athens Information Diffusion System are Info2004, the Commentator Information System and the Central Repository:

INFO2004 - This is an intranet with 200,000 connections. It features:

More than 50,000 pages of information in English, French and Greek;
11,000 biographies and historical results dating back to 1896, the date of the first modern Olympic Games held in Athens;
24x7 access from more than 1,600 kiosks at the Olympic Games venues.

COMMENTATOR INFORMATION SYSTEM - This communicates the results to broadcast operations. It's a browser-based application that includes:
Results instantaneously displayed on touch-screen PCs at the venue broadcast sites
Event results for broadcasters;
'Colour’ information for media commentary via 300 sport-specific screens;
Access via 1,500 terminals at 20 Games venues.

CENTRAL REPOSITORY AND PRINT DISTRIBUTION - This feeds the official database that, in turn, sends the event results to the Games website, world press agencies, the Internet data feed and to Olympic Games officials. An estimated 50 million pages of official results are printed and delivered to Olympic officials over this system.

RESOURCES

The Atos section of its website about its business status:
http://www.atosorigin.com/corporate/investors/index.htm

Note: Fairly modern versions of either Windows Media Player or RealPlayer are needed for the next four links:

A streaming video of the Technology Operations Centre:
http://www.atosorigin.com/corporate/olympicgames/multimedia/video/toc_videos.htm
A streaming video of the Integration Test Lab:
http://www.atosorigin.com/corporate/olympicgames/multimedia/video/integration_lab_videos.htm
A streaming video of the PC Factory:
http://www.atosorigin.com/corporate/olympicgames/multimedia/video/pc_factory_videos.htm
A streaming video of the back-up system at the Data Centres:
http://www.atosorigin.com/corporate/olympicgames/multimedia/video/data_center_videos.htm

Here's a one-page PDF file that sketches the technology linkages provided by Atos Origin:
http://www.atosorigin.com/corporate/pdf/infrastructure_2004.pdf

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 26, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #495
VANOC NUMBERS HELD FOR OCTOBER; CORRIGAN LETTER TO IOC; VANOC BOARD SHORTENS...

Five moguls we bumped into today...

The director of communications for the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, Jane Burnes, says it's unlikely that preliminary financial results for VANOC will be released publicly before the audited results, which are due at the end of October. VANOC's first year-end was July 31.
VANOC CEO John Furlong says he wishes Burnaby mayor Derek Corrigan well in writing a letter of protest to the International Olympic Committee about the VANOC's decision to change the location of the speed-skating oval from Simon Fraser University, which is in Burnaby, to nearby Richmond. "The IOC have essentially endorsed what we’ve done. Obviously if they receive a letter, they will consider it but I don’t believe there will be a change as a result of it. We went to great lengths to consult with the IOC and the sports federation, and they all saw it as a decision for the sport community. And we involved SFU in the [decision] process. It was a difficult decision for us."
Furlong says it appears that the IOC will not appoint a replacement for Charmaine Crooks to the VANOC's Board of Directors until 2006. Crooks's term with the IOC ended yesterday. And he says the IOC is also unlikely to replace another IOC representative on the VANOC board when Paul Henderson's term ends in November, leaving only one IOC representative, Dick Pound, on the Board. Furlong was hoping that Canadian wrestler Daniel Igali would win election to replace Crooks as the IOC's athletes representative on the VANOC board, but Igali lost the vote, which was hotly contested and held yesterday in Athens.
The International Olympic Committee released a brief summary of a poll it commissioned in Athens of 1,025 spectators at the Summer Olympics. (Typically, the IOC keeps quite a bit of its relatively recent marketing data under wraps for use by sponsors.) The summary reported however that "the overwhelming majority of spectators (over 85%) used public transport to go to and from the Olympic venues." Those replying to the survey said they took the bus (29.4%); rapid transit - the metro - (24.2%); train (16.8%); tram (8.2%) and taxi (5.2%). Of those polled, 46% were Greek, 13% were American, and the remainder were of "various different nationalities" which were not identified in the summary. Of foreign spectators replying to the survey, 56.3% said that they had come to Greece only to attend the Games. Another 37.2% had come for tourism, although it was not clear from the summary if those two figures overlapped. And, it said, 96.8% of all those who were not Greek nationals said that their emotions about, and impressions of, Greece were very favourable.
There will be a number of messages contained in the Athens closing ceremonies that may guide businesses if the same ones are communicated during the 2010 closing ceremonies. The theme will be joy and fun, so spectators are released to the streets in Athens in a good mood, an extensive but not particularly blatant pitch for Greek tourism, a less subtle but fairly spectacular pitch for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, and a lower-key pitch for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 26, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #494
(FEATURE) SIZE, TRANSPORTATION AND POPULAR SUPPORT IN ATHENS IMPRESSES AND SUPRISES FURLONG

The CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, John Furlong, says he has learned during his two trips to Greece this month that the order of magnitude, the surprisingly efficient transportation methods and the strong support of the Greek people for the Summer Games is something that will affect how 2010 planning unfolds.

Furlong and about 30 of his staff from the Committee have been to the Games to observe how they are run in the background this month, in three waves. He and the final group are leaving for Canada in a few hours. Once everybody's back, he said, there will be a debriefing to ensure VANOC isn't going off target in what it needs to accomplish in the time leading up to 2010.

He was there for the opening ceremonies, returned to complete the decision to move the speed-skating oval, and then flew back to Athens for a scheduled roundtable briefing with representatives from the cities bidding for the 2010 Summer Games.

"The order of magnitude, the scope and the size of the project and the effect that it's had on in this city is what has impressed me the most," he said in a phone call from Athens on his last night. "We took a tour of the athletes village — and this isn't something you appreciate unless you're there — we were standing in an area that is bigger that most cities in British Columbia. It was a village for 16,000 people and it could take 20,000. That's bigger than Trail, Nelson or Dawson Creek. They have shipping areas, medical and physical treatment centres, barbershops, theatres — we ate at where the athletes ate. It's a restaurant for 5,000. They've done this in a brief time and it will be a wonderful legacy, a very livable area. Now, we're not building athlete villages of this size in Vancouver or Whistler, but when we start ours, I'm sure they'll seem enormous to us."

Furlong says he was also impressed with what he calls the "discipline" at the venues. "The Olympic organization very clearly knows how to run the venues, so that every time you go to a venue, its very predictable so that you know where you're going and what you have to do. They're beautifully managed, they're clean and they have lots of volunteers. They're very well laid out and easy to get around. The Olympic overlay areas" — the temporary look and feel of the Games overlain on the physical structures — "are designed very efficiently. Like us, they have clusters of venues, and so they've designed the overlay to be more efficient, and that was a good thing for us to see."

Furlong says quite a few areas in Athens took advantage of the look and feel of the Games. "There were vibrant colours up and down the walls in generally all the Olympic precincts. It had a calming effect on you, that you were about to see something special when you're there. Athens is a big city, but they dressed up some areas, even if there weren't venues, to make it seem like the Olympics were everywhere."

Furlong says Athens's decision to create "Olympic lanes" along major thoroughfares that would be set aside for people travelling between venues in much the same way that dedicated bus lanes have been set up in other parts of the world was "a master stroke." He added, "The Olympic lane idea made transportation very efficient. Mind you, you were fined if you were caught in them and you weren't going between venues, but not many people did it and it allowed you to move from one venue cluster to another very impressively." Furlong also said it helped that people uninterested in attending the Games took their holidays in the countryside, as that reduced traffic pressures as well.

Furlong said that today he spent about an hour and a half briefing the representatives of the 2010 proponent cities - Paris, London, New York, Madrid and Moscow - at the invitation of the International Olympic Committee. He said that for about half the time, his presentation focused primarily on the systems and structures that he and his staff put in place to handle the transition of the bid organization to the Olympic Organizing Committee once Vancouver had been awarded the Games.

He said the IOC has been impressed with how Vancouver has handled this aspect and, as a result, has begun asking bid cities to build transition concepts into their bid plans. The balance of the meeting, he said, was taken up by questions and answers. "We touched on things the IOC thought we were doing quite well — brand protection, marketing issues, and the accommodation plan."

VANOC, during the bid phase and confirmed in the last few months, set up a formula for the price it will be paying for the estimated 9,000 hotel room nights it will be booking, divided between the Vancouver and Whistler areas for what's known as the "Olympic family" - families of athletes, coaches and workers, such as TV crews and technology personnel - who will be on hand before, during and after the 2010 Games. The formula deals with average pricing over the previous few years. "This has been viewed by the IOC as the very best accommodation plan that any city has ever done," Furlong said.

Furlong was also impressed with how Greece and its population has "really taken advantage of the Games. The community has finally come out in massive numbers, particularly to support their teams. It's been very exciting for the community to have their people participating in so many sports that they wouldn't normally see." Furlong said having a Canadian in an event will be something that will be extremely important to ensuring the 2010 Games are successful. "People here suddenly realized that [Greek] people were being included in the Games events. Many of the venues here are large and there were a number of events going on at the same time, and it was a challenge for Greek organizers to fill the seats. VANOC was encouraged by the IOC to resist temptation and not over-build seating. Our venues were designed to relate to the appetite we feel Canadians will have to come to Vancouver. We're optimistic that Canadians will come to our Games in large numbers."

Furlong said that, from what he's seen and learned at the Athens Olympics, "we feel pretty good about how we're doing in our planning, but when you take in a lot of information about how other cities are doing, you have to stand back and see if you're moving in the right direction. In general, I think we're doing OK; we'll see how the debriefing goes, and though we're not patting ourselves on the back or getting cocky about it, we've done a good job to where we are now."

Furlong, quoted in The Vancouver Sun as feeling the federal government ought to increasing funding levels, isn't that firm when allowed to elaborate. "Finger-pointing is not worthy of us, and we shouldn't do it. All the agencies that can help should do it. It's not just money, where its applied or where it's going. Lots of money can't have any effect in some sports, and it can help in other sports. In Canada, we know where this works best. We're a winter nation and there are areas where we can improve performance, but we all have to play our roles. Corporate leaders across [Canada] are really looking forward to participating in [the 2010 Games]. It shouldn't fall to just one agency, and I think we could improve things in time to make 2010 an extraordinary experience."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 26, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #493
STAWAMUS CHIEF GROUP TO SEEK SUPPORT FROM VANOC; RICHMOND HUNTS FOR OVAL'S PROJECT MANAGER

Two moguls we bumped into today...

Paul Mathews, president of Whistler-based Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners, and his associate Peter Alder, will be approaching the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee next month, looking for support of their proposal for a C$12-million revamp for the Stawamus Chief provincial park near the town of Squamish, British Columbia. The park is adjacent to the highway that connects Vancouver and Whistler. Among other things, they are suggesting that a gondola be constructed to the top of The Chief, a spectacular cliff that overlooks Squamish. VANOC is just one of the number of organizations Ecosign is approaching for support because the nature of the development process for changes to the area's management plan requires wide-spread community support before their proposal can be considered by authorities.
The City of Richmond has begun looking for a project manager for construction of its Olympic Oval complex, and if you're interested in the job, your resume needs to be into Richmond's Human Resources department by September 10. "We are seeking an exceptional individual or firm to lead our internal team and consultants engaged in taking this community-based concept through to commissioning in late 2007," according to the ad the City is placing. The person they're looking for has to be skilled in "consulting, planning, organizing and performance management to ensure objectives are met on time and on budget," along with "communication and facilitation skills." Not only that, but the person will also need to have a good record in "business, interpersonal and organizational awareness, business-partner orientation, resourceful use of influence, concern for credibility, analytical and conceptual thinking, commitment to quality and self-confidence in managing risks." The ability to decipher bureaucratese would also help, as the ad says the person will need, "to maintain an open and productive interface within a public process involving many external and internal stakeholders devoted to excellence in hosting the 2010 Winter Games and provision of community service thereafter."

RESOURCES

Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners:
http://www.ecosign.com/e-homepage.htm

Web-based version of Richmond's Speed-Skating Project Manager employment ad:
http://www.city.richmond.bc.ca/webnews/employment/0824_Projmanage.htm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 25, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #492
RICHMOND STARTS SPEED SKATING OVAL CONSTRUCTION PROCESS WITH CALL FOR INTERESTED ARCHITECTS

The City of Richmond has issued a formal "Request for Expressions of Interest" from teams of architects and engineers to design its riverfront 2010 Olympic Speed Skating Oval complex, and it's set an early deadline of September 3 for a response.

The REI says Richmond is looking for "teams composed of architects, engineers, planners, landscape architects and designers... with experience on comparable projects." The teams are to provide full architectural and engineering consulting services for the design of the 3.4 hectare Oval and the accompany new Waterfront Park.

"Master planning and servicing for the balance of the [11.7-hectare] parcel is being done by others," says the document, "and must be integrated with the new Skating Oval and Waterfront Park." The park portion involves a linear dyke and the designers will also be involved in dealing with "any new wharf projections" the project requires. The Oval, to International Skating Union standards, requires a minimum clear span of 90 metres across, and 190 metres along its length, and spectator seating for 8,000.

Once the expressions of interest are in, Richmond City staff will evaluate them and develop a short list of companies. These will be invited to submit a formal Proposal of Fees and Services. They'll also be interviewed and receive the building program that has been developed for the skating oval as submitted to the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee. The award winner will be selected from this group, although no date for the selection is yet given.

The cost of the facility is budgeted at C$118 million, with another C$6 million designated for post-Games conversion -- a number of facilities set up for the 2010 Games won't be necessary afterwards -- for a total cost of C$124 million in 2004 dollars. Including site development, site servicing, and the integrated Waterfront Park, there is an additional budget of C$19 million, for a total project budget of C$143 million. VANOC is contributing C$60 million to the project, and will be negotiating with Richmond later for a share in the Olympic's Legacy fund, to be established to help on-going operations of the facility.

The REI says that master planning for the area, as well as site servicing, River Road's re-alignment in the area and reconstruction of Hollybridge Road will all be awarded and tendered as separate projects.

The document confirms the design of the facility will need to provide "an ongoing commitment" to long- and short-track speed-skating, and will need to be designed in such a way that it's adaptable to a variety of post-Olympic Games uses including ice facilities for the oval and accompany hockey rinks. Also to be incorporated into the design: a field house, gymnasiums, fitness areas and a "wellness" center. The area must also be convertible to special events such as trade-and-exhibition style shows.

The complex, at least for the purposes of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, is to be "substantially complete" by October 31, 2007, but some project dates have already been set up:

The award for pre-load and soil densification, a critical aspect on Richmond's river-delta land, is March 14, 2005. The award for the foundation and piling contract must be done by June 17, 2005, while the award for the main construction contract is to be done by November 4, 2005.

Richmond wants the team that's eventually awarded the project to deal with the building's design and engineer, take part in the public consultation process that starts this fall, do presentations to VANOC and to City of Richmond Council on the project as they work with Richmond City staff and an extensive variety of external agencies. They want the contractor to design from the initial concept right through to making up the tender documents, conduct the tender process, do the administration work for the construction contracts, look after the post-Games conversion of the facility, integrate an "arts and culture legacy" into the design's interior and exterior and ensure the project is built to achieve at least a LEED Silver designation for environmental aspects -- Olympics construction requires LEED designations for its projects, though such standards are controversial in British Columbia.

RESOURCES

Richmond City Staff overseeing the project:

Robert Gonzalez, Director of Engineering: 604.276.4150.
Mary Brunet, Project Manager of Facility Planning and Construction, 604.244.1267.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 25, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #491
VANOC DIRECTOR AT FELICIEN'S SIDE; VANOC TRADEMARKING MORE SLOGANS

Two moguls we've bumped into today...

*

The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee has begun the process of registering the phrases "TEAM CANADA 2010", "SPIRIT OF 2010", "COUNTDOWN TO 2010", "TEAM 2010, "EQUIPE 2010" with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office in Ottawa. There is no immediate word as to how VANOC intends to use the phrases. The applications were made using VANOC's law firm in such matters, Borden Ladner Gervais of Vancouver. This brings the number of marks VANOC has registered to more than about a dozen this year alone. The phrases, for the most part, were gazetted for the advertising stage in Vol.51 Issue 2593; "Equipe 2010" and "TEAM 2010" were gazetted in Vol.51 Issue 2588. (Earlier story: 'Committee begins copyright proceedings on five phrases, 6th by the COC' [Morgan:News:2010:Number:310; Published on Thursday, May 13, 2004].

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 24, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #490
VISA URGES LARGE AND SMALL COMPANIES TO SUPPORT 2010 OLYMPIC MOVEMENT

The president of Visa Canada, Derek Fry, is urging the private sector to support the Olympic movement "as Canada prepares to welcome the world in 2010."

In a letter from his Toronto office to editors in Vancouver, Fry notes that Visa has been a corporate sponsor of the Olympics since 1986 and has "invested hundreds of millions of dollars" through its global sponsorship of the Games, and through its sponsorship with national Olympic organizations. "Visa remains committed to the Olympic Games for two simple reasons," he says. "It's the right thing to do, and it's good for business."

During much of the letter, he reiterates themes that we reported when he spoke in Vancouver June 8, when Visa Canada confirmed that it was renewing a an extensive agreement with Tourism Vancouver and Tourism Whistler to promote Vancouver and Whistler domestic and international travel in the run up to, and during, the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

But he adds, "I believe that virtually any company's image can be enhanced by partnership, at some level, with the Olympics. That's why I encourage small and medium-sized businesses to explore any Olympic support opportunities that may be offered through the Vancouver-Whistler 2010 organizing committee or even through the individual sports federations. It is my hope that such opportunities will be available so that smaller Canadian companies can support our athletes and help build their businesses by associating with one of the world's premier brands, the Olympic rings. After all, the values that underpin the Olympic Games - fair play, competition, leadership, achievement, hard work - provide a solid foundation for successful businesses, from large multinationals to family-owned enterprises... You'll be helping our athletes and your business onto the podium."

BACKGROUND
==========

'Visa to spend "millions" with Tourism Vancouver, Whistler on 2010 marketing and promotions after 2006'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:360; Published on Tuesday, June 8, 2004]

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 24, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #489
(FEATURE) NEWSPAPER SAYS ALL NATIONAL SPONSORSHIPS UP FOR GRABS JAN 1 FOR 2010 GAMES

2010NewsWatch

A reporter for one of Canada's national business newspapers, Keith McArthur of the Globe & Mail, says the Royal Bank of Canada's parent company, RBC, will lose its historical position as a favoured national sponsor of the Olympics at the Canadian national level, a position its held since 1948, along with a number of other companies. The RBC and a handful of other firms will no longer be able to rely on "right of first negotiation."

The newspaper, in a feature story, says that "new International Olympic Committee rules require all incumbent sponsors in any host country to bid against all challengers if they want to maintain their rights. All relationships between the Canadian Olympic Committee and its sponsors will end Dec. 31. When the Athens Games conclude, the COC sponsorship office will go into suspended animation, and the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) will begin selling rights for the next eight years, including the 2006 Winter Games (Torino), 2008 (Beijing), 2010 (Vancouver) and 2012 (yet to be awarded)."

McArthur says the effect is to declare "open season on one of modern marketing's single most valuable commercial opportunities. And it's a process that could add more than C$250-million to the Vancouver Games budget. Predictably, the competitors are in full training mode. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is said to be preparing an aggressive challenge to RBC. HSBC Bank is considering a bid of its own. In the telecom sector, Telus aims to dethrone Bell Canada, which has sponsored the Games for the past eight years. There will be wrestling matches in other categories as well. Price tags will be steep. Sports marketing experts say that in banking, telecommunications and automotive sectors, Olympics sponsorship rights for eight years could sell for as much as C$60-million. And that's a fraction of what it will cost the winners to exercise and leverage those rights through advertising and promotion. To put that in perspective, RBC's entire ad budget last year was C$20-million, according to Nielsen Media Research."

The newspaper quotes consultant Keith McIntyre, president of K. Mac & Associates in Mississauga as saying, "It's going to be the biggest marketing commitment most of these companies will ever make. There are going to be some bidding wars. . . . Companies may go on a spending frenzy."

McArthur asks, "The obvious question is why? What's so valuable about sponsorship rights?", then quotes Laurie Schild, a vice-president at Bell Canada for the reason: "This is the most recognized brand in the world, The halo effect that you get from that -- there's a lot of benefit."

The reporter claims the Olympics are no longer about philanthropy, "It's about brand building. RBC says it gets a return at several levels. It uses athletes to motivate employees and make them more productive. And its Olympic-themed activities -- everything from advertising to community events and seminars for small businesses on how to capitalize on the 2010 Games -- make people think more positively about the bank, yielding new revenue. But unlike traditional media advertising, where established metrics exist for evaluating return on investment, the calculus of brand-building through sports marketing is a lot fuzzier. Although details haven't been finalized, Canadian Olympic sponsors will likely be buying the right to use the COC and Vancouver 2010 logos on advertising, letterhead, products and services for the next eight years. VANOC would be expected to use sponsor logos in its own promotional materials, and may also provide opportunities for joint advertising among sponsors. In some categories, such as telecom, companies will also win the right to supply products to VANOC."

McArthur suggests that "dozens of companies are trying to determine what it's worth." He says McIntyre helps companies appraise such investments based on how many "impressions" sponsorship generates -- how many times consumers are reminded of the connection between the Olympics and the sponsor, either through PR or advertising. "In some categories," says McArthur, "such impressions could be worth C$15 million to C$30 million over the eight-year period. But softer benefits -- unquantifiable -- will raise the value to as much as CC$60-million."

McArthur quotes Robert Cruikshank, Telus's executive vice-president in charge of his company's bid, which is now in the hands of VANOC, along with Bell's, as saying, "Can you get a return on investment at C$30-million to C$60-million? I believe you can."

McArthur says Telus has "assembled a full team to calculate what the sponsorship agreement is worth under the IOC's open bidding process. To meet the new requirements for Vancouver's bid, the [Canadian Olympic Committee] had to ask several key sponsors, including Bell Canada and Roots Canada, to sign waivers ceding rights of first negotiation." He says Bell didn't sign that waiver lightly, quoting Schild as saying, "We anguished over it, but it was the right thing to do."

The newspaper paraphrases Dave Cobb, VANOC's new senior vice-president of Revenue, Marketing & Communications as saying that by "starting with a clean slate, Vancouver will be able to maximize sponsorship revenue, argues That, he says, will allow it to mount a strong Games and leave a legacy for B.C. and Canadian sport."

McArthur says that VANOC estimates the operating budget for the 2010 Games will be about C$1-billion, and it plans to raise 25% of that from Canadian sponsors. "That figure," McArthur says, "is based on a preliminary but now outdated estimate of C$160-million in cash and in-kind income from eight to 10 top-level domestic sponsors (an average of C$2 million per sponsor in categories including airline, automotive, banking, brewery, oil and gas and telecom), and a further C$133 million in Tier 2 and 3 categories, such as clothing, office products and wine. International sponsors such as Coca-Cola and McDonald's would inject another C$85-million."

He quoted Cobb as expects domestic sponsors to pay a lot more than originally anticipated. "The numbers in the [briefing] book are understated. It would not be a good idea for people to assume that they can acquire particular categories for those numbers."

McArthur says that the telecom sponsorship "is shaping up as the most aggressive of categories. For Bell, a division of BCE Inc., sponsorship would provide a huge profile in British Columbia, a key growth market. For Telus, with its western roots, it would help build national profile. While Bell has a connection with the COC, Telus has been affiliated with the Vancouver Olympic bid since 1996, when its predecessor (BC Tel) signed on to support the bid."

The newspaper quotes Telus's Cruikshank as saying, "I think we're... putting forward a pretty compelling offer." McArthur says Cruikshank told him that Telus has an "exhaustive network and backup facilities" in British Columbia, which Bell would have to build. McArthur adds, "While Bell talks about having 2,000 employees in B.C. by 2010, Telus already has 7,200 employees in the lower mainland [Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley]."

McArthur also quotes Cruikshank as saying, "If you were CEO of the Games, who would you put more stead in, the person who was waving the most cash in front of you or the person that could minimize your risk?"

Bell's Schild, says McArthur, isn't conceding anything and quotes her as saying, "The way we're looking at this right now, we're going to win." Ms. Schild told McArthur that the Bell bid is less risky than Telus's because Bell offers a much wider range of products and services. And its B.C. work force will grow much faster if it wins the bid.

McArthur also quotes Bob Stellick, president of Toronto's Stellick Marketing Communications Inc., as saying that Bell's various product offerings -- satellite, Internet, cellphones and land lines -- could be advantageous. "Don't anybody discount Bell's... ability to get what they want," Stellick is quoted as saying.

The newspaper says that, "Other categories could also be competitive. Both Air Canada and WestJet say they are considering bids. And current sponsor DaimlerChrysler Canada Inc. may face competition from General Motors of Canada Ltd. (its U.S. affiliate sponsors the U.S. Olympic Association), and Volkswagen Canada Inc., which is advertising heavily on the CBC during the Athens Games. The battle could be so heated that corporations could overpay for rights."

McIntyre told McArthur, "Our advice is that you should definitely have concrete objectives set out well in advance. You'd better have a walk-away plan if you want to play in this game."

BACKGROUND
==========

The full newspaper article is in the Globe of August 21, 2004 on Page B4 and is currently available at:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040821/RCOVER21/TPBusiness/TopStories

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 24, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #488
FURLONG JOINS CHORUS URGING MORE FUNDING FOR HIGH-PERFORMANCE ATHLETES

2010NewsWatch

The Vancouver Sun newspaper quotes John Furlong, the CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, as adding his voice to the call that governments in Canada must invest more in its athletes to avoid the kind of poor medal showing the country is experiencing at the Athens 2004 Summer Games.

"It's impossible to dig a field with a spoon," John Furlong told reporter Jeff Lee in a telephone interview from Greece. "It's absolutely critical that as a country, province and society, that we learn something from how the results have gone here. It is very difficult to compete at the world level when you don't have the resources to complete your training."

Furlong told Lee that Canada has "seriously underestimated" what it needs to help high-performance athletes achieve top results in their chosen fields. "We don't do it to the level that's required."

The Sun says that Furlong believes Vancouver hosting the 2010 Winter Games is putting pressure to ensure Canada does well. And it paraphrases him as saying "that's not going to happen if there is not an all-round effort by governments, sport organizations, corporate sponsors and the public at large to give more support to athletes."

Lee quotes Furlong as saying, "Because the spotlight is on Vancouver and this is a one chance in a lifetime for us, we have to be the ones who are speaking out to support that kind of programming. High-performance sport in this country is something that people have to start playing a more significant role in. It is easy to say it isn't all about medals, and it isn't. But the fact of the matter is that when the athletes are doing well and performing at their best, it has an enormous inspirational impact on young people across the country. It's good for the morale of the country, and we can't let that slip by."

Several winter-sports organizations, such as the head of Cross Country Canada, have expressed the same frustrations, but say that it's essentially too late now to have much effect on the 2010 Winter Games because of development lag time for a high-performance athlete takes seven to 10 years.

Mark Lowry, the Canadian Olympic Committee's executive director of sport, said earlier the concept of unifying Sport Canada's athlete-support strategy and that of the COC's through a new National Sports Review Panel will have an influence on the 2010 Games. But, he adds, it will take 10 years to have the new strategy start having significant effects, which means the 2012 Summer Games will feel the effects more than 2010.

Meanwhile, an editorial in today's Globe & Mail, a national newspaper based in Toronto, says, however, that money isn't everything when it comes to Olympic medals:

"Glimpsed from afar, money may seem the reason Australia does so well. At the Sydney Games, it spent C$280-million on its athletes, or C$14.80 per capita, and won 58 medals; Canada spent C$62-million, or C$1.99 per capita for its 14 medals. (This year Sport Canada is spending C$120-million, but the focus is increasingly on winter sports, in the lead-up to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.) But the 2000 Olympics were the culmination for Australia of a 25-year effort to celebrate the nation's sense of its physicality and ruggedness, and perhaps shake off colonial insecurities, by winning as many medals as possible. Money and fanaticism are mutually reinforcing. The reason for Canada's Olympic woes is that no one has articulated a convincing reason for this country to make the same push as the Aussies. Countries win at the Olympics when sports are rooted in their culture, traditions and psyche. And that cannot be bought."

BACKGROUND
==========

'(Feature) Cross-Country Canada short money, time for 2010 athlete development'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:432; Published on Monday, July 12, 2004]

'COC after Air Canada's Olympic ads; new sports panel will 'influence' 2010; Hobnobbing with 2010...'
[Morgan:News:2010:Number:481; Published on Friday, August 20, 2004]

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 24, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #487
SWATCH, A 2010 GAMES SPONSOR, GETTING ATTENTION FROM ATHENS OLYMPICS

Swatch Group AG, one of the world's largest watchmakers, says in its first-half financial report for 2004 that the Olympic Games in Athens are, "drawing particular attention to the Swatch brand among an international public." Swatch AG is the official timekeeper for the Olympics through to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and one of the 10 main sponsors of the 2004 Olympics. The Greek government estimates Athens is attracting a television audience of about four billion people worldwide, and many of them get to see the Swatch logo on a regular basis.

The Swatch logo is visible on the starters' blocks for sprinting events at the 72,000-seat Olympic stadium in Athens and on the touch pads in the Olympic pool, and the company is expected to get similar exposure during the 2010 Games. As a top-level sponsor, it deals directly with the International Olympic Committee for its marketing.

Bruno Grande, who heads Swatch's Olympic marketing division, declines to discuss the value of the company's contract is confidential. However Bloomberg reports that Jim Andrews, editorial director of the industry newsletter IEG Sponsorship Report, reports the watchmaker is spending about US$75 million (about C$98 million) per Olympic four-year cycle to be what the IOC terms an Olympic Partner.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 24, 2004

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #486
RESEARCH POSSIBILITIES AT SPEED-SKATING OVAL; EUROPEAN TV RIGHTS FOR 2010 IN BLACK AND WHITE; RATING THE ANTHEM

Three moguls we've bumped into today...

Now that the hoopla over the award of speed-skating oval by the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee to Richmond is settling down, thoughts are turning to what might be accomplished with Simon Fraser University and other research and educational groups. The Richmond Review newspaper reports that the University of B.C. is planning to construct a clubhouse for its rowing club on the Fraser River near the oval. The B.C. Institute of Technology is planning to build a new C$50-million campus on a vacant parcel of land on Sea Island, just north of the Dinsmore Bridge, not far from the oval's location. Neither Simon Fraser nor Richmond have yet spoken about how SFU's research plans, originally set up for an on-campus oval, might be implemented off-campus. But some are mulling over the research possibilities of the effect of Richmond's climate on speed-skating ice. Richmond's location is low altitude -- effectively sea-level -- and with relatively high ambient humidity, but the best speed-skating ice is made a higher altitudes in dryer air. While there might be quite a bit that can be done to offset the location with the ice plant engineering for the oval, designing a speed-skating ice skate blade that is efficient on the Richmond ice is a possibility. VANOC's senior vice-president of Sport, Cathy Priestner, also says VANOC will work with Richmond to encourage relationships with educational organizations that benefit sports.
During a ceremony yesterday in Athens, the International Olympic Committee and the European Broadcasting Union representatives officially signed the contract for the Olympic broadcast rights for Europe for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2012 Summer Games in a city yet to be awarded the franchise. The agreement, which we reported in detail July 6, covers 51 countries, except for Italy, and a wide range of media categories, including, for the first time, multi-media and mobile telephony broadcasting. The agreement is valued at e614 million (C$977 million at today's exchange rates) - an increase of about 40% from the previous contract. The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee is expected to receive about C$158 million from the deal. In addition to the contract value, the EBU and its members have committed to major additional Olympic programming and promotional efforts to support the Olympic brand and promotion of "the Olympic ideal" before and after the actual Games period, which the IOC values at a further e125 million (C$199 million).
For potential 2010 advertisers and sponsors interested in TV viewing behaviour in Canada during an Olympics, it's worth noting that ratings on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's coverage of the Athens Games are reportedly up 5% from the 2000 Sydney Games, but that they drop 14% during prime time, apparently due to the relative lack of Canadian medals and the timing of the live events, which tend to take place overnight to Canadians. On The Sports Network, however, the prime-time numbers are reportedly up 7%.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 23, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #485
BACKGROUND AND CONTACT INFO FOR NEW BC TOURISM & HOSPITALITY CONSORTIUM DIRECTORS

The new British Columbia Tourism and Hospitality Education and Training Consortium will have 15 members. The consortium says it will issue a report to government and the public each year that summarizes the developments, activities or accomplishments of the consortium.

There are to be six industry representatives, but only four have been confirmed so far; staffers say they expect to confirm the remaining two shortly.

For details, see the RESOURCES section, below, but those confirmed so far include:

Arlene Keis, CEO, go2
Chris Kanuka, VP Operations, Old Spaghetti Factory
Kirby Brown, Director of Employee Experience, Whistler/Blackcomb and
Terry Schnieder, VP Operations, Prestige Inns

There will be six representatives from the educational sector:

Greg Lee, President, Capilano College, North Vancouver;
Dale Dorn, President, Vancouver Community College, Vancouver;
Stephanie Forsythe, President, Northwest Community College;
Roger Barnsley, President, UCC;
Julia Peters, Director of Education, Premier College of Hotel Management
Wendy Lee, Executive Director, BC School Superintendents Association

The British Columbia government has three representatives:

Arlene Paton (Acting Assistant Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Advanced Education; phone: 250.387.6189; e-mail: Arlene.Paton@gems7.gov.bc.ca : http://www.aved.gov.bc.ca;
Doug Caul (Assistant Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Small Business And Economic Development; phone: 250.952-0242; e-mail: Doug.Caul@gems7.gov.bc.ca ; http://www.gov.bc.ca/sbed;
Brian Clewes, CEO, Industry Training Authority. Clewes, a former vice-president of Human Resources for Telus, took over the job of running the ITA in early 2003 when it was formed. The Industry Training Authority was created to increase access to training in trades and technical sectors in B.C. Phone: 604.214.8706; e-mail: bclewes@itabc.ca; http://www.itabc.ca

RESOURCES

Go2 is a tourism human-resource organization created in 2002. It has an annual operating budget of about C$1 million funded in part through the sale of courses, including 'Serving It Right' and 'FoodSafe' by correspondence. As well, go2 gets funding and generates revenue through the Canadian Tourism Human Resource Council and sales of its training products and occupational certifications. Tourism British Columbia also provides about C$300,000 annual contribution to support this work.
http://www.go2hr.ca
The Old Spaghetti Factory is a restaurant chain focused mainly on Western Canada and based in Vancouver.
http://www.oldspaghettifactory.ca
Whistler/Blackcomb is a company that runs the major ski hills in Whistler, and is to be the site of some of the 2010 Winter Games:
http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/
Prestige Inns is a British Columbia-based chain of hotels, primarily focused on resort areas.
http://www.prestigeinn.com/

Here are the websites for the colleges and educational organizations involved in the consortium:

Capilano College
http://www.capcollege.bc.ca
Vancouver Community College:
http://www.vcc.bc.ca
Northwest Community College
http://www.nwcc.bc.ca/
University College of the Cariboo (UCC):
http://www.cariboo.bc.ca
Premier College of Hotel Management, Vancouver:
http://www.vpcollege.com/
British Columbia School Superintendents Association, Vancouver:
http://www.bcssa.org/

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 23, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #484
CONTRACTS AWARDED FOR AUDITOR AND TAX ADVISOR

The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee's Board of Directors have confirmed awards for two major contracts to support VANOC's financial operations. Both contracts went to Canadian firms.

It has appointed the firm of Ernst & Young, a large national firm, as its first external auditor. VANOC first fiscal year ended July 31 and the non-profit organization's first official financial statements and annual report, covering the period back to September 30, 2003, when it was incorporated, are expected this fall. VANOC had eight responses to the offer of the two-year contract, which was made publicly last June, however the amount of the contract has not yet been disclosed.

The auditor will work with operational staff and with VANOC's Audit Committee is made up of five members of VANOC's Board of Directors, which meets about half a dozen times a year. The Audit Committee is responsible for reviewing the annual statements from the auditor and it will sign off on them first, before they go to the full Board for approval and then disclosure. The auditor will be on a strict timeline: VANOC wants the year-end audit work completed by September 15, finalized a week later, sent to the audit committee by the end of September, so it can meet with the committee on October 7.

Assuming approval at that point, the audited statements would likely go to the VANOC Board of Directors meeting in mid-October for approval, with release likely coming before the end of October, once VANOC's had a chance to print the annual report. It's expect it will be a highly scrutinized document, particularly since the provincial government will be in the throes of preparing its own final budget before next spring's election.

VANOC has also appointed the firm of KPMG as its tax advisors; it had seven responses to the contract offer. The accounting firm, one of the largest in Canada, is to provide VANOC with a wide range of local, national and international tax advice for the next three years, starting immediately. The amount of the contract was not immediately available, either.

VANOC is still in the process of looking for a customs broker to handle goods it will be importing or exporting between British Columbia and countries such as the United States, between now and at least 2010.

BACKGROUND
==========

KPMG will have its work cut out for it, as it will have to wade through a thicket of tax issues that will be, um, taxing.

By international tradition, any organization officially connected to putting on the 2010 Winter Games -- and that includes accredited media, sponsors and suppliers -- will be except from customs duties, excises taxes and GST on goods imported into Canada, such as personal effects, gifts, awards, display goods and equipment. The International Olympic Committee is also exempt from Canadian federal income tax, and Canada's 7% Goods and Services Tax (GST) paid by the IOC in its commercial activities is fully recoverable through input tax credits. VANOC, legally a non-profit organization, isn't subject to federal income tax, nor federal or provincial capital taxes. Not only that, but it can get a full recovery of all GST it pays on real property construction costs under most conditions, and even in the cases where it incurs the tax, it gets a 50% rebate because of its non-profit status.

VANOC is subject to British Columbia's 7.5% Social Services tax, also known as the PST, or provincial sales tax. VANOC also has to withhold taxes on payments to people outside of Canada in certain cases, depending on how tax treaties work for various countries. These payments typically would include interest, rents, royalties and some management and administrative fees.

Funds that VANOC received from third-party organizations inside Canada aren't subject to income tax, either, although if they are taxable goods and services, VANOC pays GST or PST.

Both the federal and provincial governments have assured VANOC and the IOC that no withholding or income taxes will apply on shared revenues or surplus that flows from VANOC to the IOC. Shared revenues received by VANOC from the IOC are not subject to taxation, either.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 23, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Government| #483
B.C. SETS UP CONSORTIUM TO BOOST TOURISM, HOSPITALITY TRAINING TO OFFSET 2010-PREDICTED SHORTFALLS

The British Columbia government is involved in a new pool of organizations designed to help "tourism and hospitality training initiatives". These, in turn, would help host events like the 2010 Winter Games.

A new "strategic advisory body," called the British Columbia Tourism and Hospitality Education and Training Consortium, will co-ordinate planning among a number of institutions, industries and governments to ensure the education and training requirements of the tourism and hospitality industry are met. The consortium will be made up of representatives from Capilano College, Vancouver Community College, Northwest Community College, University College of the Cariboo, the B.C. Career Colleges Association, the B.C. School Superintendents Association, two government ministries, the Industry Training Authority, go2 and five additional industry/employer representatives.

The B.C. government will establish the British Columbia Centre for Leadership and Innovation in Tourism at Capilano College in North Vancouver, and the British Columbia Centre for Leadership and Innovation in Hospitality will be set up at Vancouver Community College, in Vancouver, to help provide training programs.

Instead of the usual practice of provincial government cabinet ministers making such announcements, local members of the legislature did so in these cases. North Vancouver-Lonsdale MLA Katherine Whittred, a Liberal, says, "Our post-secondary institutions are fostering innovative training to meet the demand for skilled workers to support the revitalized tourism and hospitality sector. By establishing two hospitality and tourism centres for leadership and innovation, we'll ensure we have people with the right skills so that British Columbia can provide world-class service during the 2010 Winter Games and beyond."

In addition, another Liberal, Vancouver-Burrard MLA Lorne Mayencourt, announced that government will invest approximately $1.2 million in one-time funding to boost hospitality and tourism training programs at post-secondary institutions throughout the province.

"Our institutions already offer a variety of hospitality and tourism programs, from golf course management to wilderness adventure guiding to chef certification to hotel management," Mayencourt said. "This fund will allow our institutions to try new approaches to tourism and hospitality training, and to explore new program idea."

"Tourism is one of B.C.'s major economic drivers, directly and indirectly employing 266,000 British Columbians," said Dan Jarvis, MLA for North Vancouver-Seymour. "The government's Spirit of 2010 Tourism Strategy recognizes the importance of nurturing a skilled tourism work force. By investing in this growing industry, we will be able to meet the training needs of 2010 and contribute to a strong and vibrant economy."

Capilano College president Dr. Greg Lee says, "The new center for leadership and innovation in tourism at our Squamish campus will have far-reaching benefits for all of the communities of B.C. We plan to expand tourism training to the benefit of communities in the Howe Sound corridor as we head towards the 2010 Winter Games."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 23, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #482
OLYMPICS MARKETING VIA THE BACKDOOR WORKS FOR SOME COMPANIES

One way to get your corporate name into the Olympics -- without being a sponsor and paying significant marketing fees -- is to sell something that athletes or the organizations connected with the Olympics want. And what they all want is something that gives them an edge at the Olympics.

Which is why Westport Innovations was asked for their comments when the Vancouver Bid Corporation was developing the environmental aspects of transportation during the pitch for the 2010 Games. And which is why, in the Athens' Athlete's village, people are using the word "Dartfish", as in the phrase, "I want to Dartfish that."

The quality of the environment for an Olympics Games is now being written into host-city contracts with the International Olympic Committee, and it was a theme of Vancouver's bid in particular. Westport of Vancouver makes low-emission natural gas engines for vehicles such as city buses, and two years ago it sold 10 such engines to the City of Beijing as a demonstration portion of the city's Olympics-influenced clean-up of the city for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Last April it agreed to sell another 150 engines plus maintain 2,000. It's now working with Dongfeng Cummins Engine to build an assembly plant in Xiangfang to open in early 2005 and look after its Chinese market; it's hoping to have its engines in 18,000 buses by 2008, in part through its profile of being involved in the support of the Olympic games there.

Vancouver 2010 contracts issued so far expressly forbid firms responding to requests for proposals from mentioning their connections in promotional material, even to news media, but that's not the case for firms who supply products without going through the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee.

Dartfish is a smallish Swiss software company that's produced a couple of programs, StroMo and SimulCam, which are video software used for training. Its highly customizable, sells for as little as US$600, but can run to US$5,500. In essence, it converts videos of an athletes practice into stills for post-workout analysis. Athletes and their coaches have been using it in the run-up to Athens to spot flaws and fine-tune their efforts.

The word-of-mouth marketing technique one often finds as conferences and trade shows is working well for Dartfish at Athens as those who weren't aware of the programs are hearing first-hand reviews by successful colleagues who talk about how they're using it. They, in turn, will influence schools and other mass-training organizations to consider the software.

A couple of things to note about this type of approach, however: people training for the Olympics are performance-conscious, as opposed to brand conscious. High-performance athletes take the design of products seriously.

RESOURCES

Westport Innovations Inc.
1700 West 75th Ave., 2nd Floor
Vancouver, BC Canada
V6P 6G2
t: 604.718.2000
f: 604.718.2001
info@westport.com http://www.westport.com
Management:
http://www.westport.com/company/management.php

Westport is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange as "WPT". Here's the latest market info:
http://www.tse.com/HttpController?GetPage=QuotesViewPage&DetailedView=DetailedPrices&Market=T&Language=en&QuoteSymbol_1=wpt

Cummins Westport Inc. is a 50/50 joint venture with Cummins Inc. It's "an alternate fuels joint venture created to develop and market low emissions, high-performance alternative-fuel engines." The headquarters are in Vancouver, BC, with offices in Columbus, Indiana; Seal Beach, California; Dallas, Texas; Beijing, China; and Daventry, England.
http://www.cumminswestport.com/

Dartfish:
http://www.dartfish.com/en/home/home.jsp

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 23, 2004

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #481
COC AFTER AIR CANADA'S OLYMPIC ADS; NEW SPORTS PANEL WILL 'INFLUENCE' 2010; HOBNOBING WITH 2010...

Eight moguls we've bumped into today...

The Canadian Olympic Committee's lawyers are said, according to the Globe & Mail newspaper in Toronto, to be concerned about what it feels are ambush-advertising in Air Canada's ads that are being aired during CBC-TV coverage of the Athens Olympic Games. The newspaper says the COC isn't talking officially, and Air Canada hasn't had any official notification from the COC, but apparently it's concerned about ads that feature athletes solving problems; the ad then says Air Canada is a "proud sponsor" of the CBC's broadcast. The Toronto Stock Exchange, LG Electronics Canada and Volkswagen Canada have reportedly agreed to make changes to their ads to "appease the COC." The CBC, says the paper, is changing the themed segments of its broadcast sponsored by the Tim Hortons restaurant chain, which is not an Olympic sponsor, by moving the company's logo away from the Olympic rings logo. The paper quotes Canadian trademark lawyers as saying the COC is being too aggressive, but that companies are making business decisions that it's cheaper to make the changes that fight a court case, even though they're giving in to bullying tactics.
The Canadian Freestyle Ski Association says it is expanding the number of of its sports that will be judged by software designed by Terra Cognita Software Systems of Prince George, in central British Columbia. Since the Association began using TCSS's software three years ago, it's been used for judging competitions in moguls, aerials, table top and half pipe. It's now adding dual moguls to the list of events the software will assist in judging. Terra Cognita CEO Garth Frizzell says that, "As the excitement builds toward 2010, it's exhilarating to be part of winter sports and sport development across Canada." Prince George Mayor Colin Kinsley, who also chairs the city's 2010 North Committee, adds, "We will become more involved in winter sports as 2010 approaches, and this is an excellent example of how Prince George is becoming a technology centre and making a substantial contribution to sport and athletic development at the national level." Terra Cognita's main business is software support for various land-use activities, such as the scientific capture and analyze of records by wildlife researchers on cariboo. Terra Cognita Vice President Remi Despres-Smyth says "We make sure judges concentrate on judging -- not learning a tricky computer system."
Mark Lowry, the Canadian Olympic Committee's executive director of sport, said in Athens today that he figures the concept of unifying Sport Canada's athlete-support strategy and that of the COC's through a new National Sports Review Panel will have an influence on the 2010 Games. But, he adds, it will take 10 years to have the new strategy start having significant effects, which means the 2012 Summer Games. He told Sun Media that the Panel, comprised of experts from various sports, Sport Canada officials and the COC, will be set up by the end of September and begin work as early as October. Sport Canada, the federal government's support arm, and the COC, primarily funded by the International Olympic Committee through monies raised by Olympic Games, have until now worked independently. Sports organizations throughout the country will present their case for funding to the new panel which will make recommendations on which groups should receive it.
One of the benefits of being a sponsor of an Olympics is that you get to hobnob with the movers and shakers of those putting on a future Olympics, and that's good for marketing. Take, for instance, a recent evening in Athens hosted by Roots Canada, the official outfitter of the Olympic teams of several countries, including Canada. The glitterati included several members of VANOC's Board of Directors, including Charmaine Crooks, who also represents the International Olympic Committee; Dick Pound, who is also chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency; Chris Rudge, the CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee; plus Jack Poole and John Furlong, Chair and CEO, respectively, of the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee. Also present and pleased to speak was was Gordon Campbell, Premier of British Columbia, who provided some standard remarks about how plans are progressing for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.
Richmond's Olympic supporters weren't the only ones pleased by the announcement by the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee that it will get the speed-skating oval. Carlene Lewall, chair of the Spirit of Delta 2010 Committee says her group, in the Vancouver suburb just south of Richmond, is just as pumped. "Having it so close to Delta could mean some significant spin-offs for our community in terms of offering our facilities to athletes for training, and visitors coming to see the games," she said. "I think the potential is there for this to have a significant effect on the local economy." The committee meets September 7 to discuss the situation, and to continue planning on the winter-festival type of events to mark next February 12. That date marks exactly five years from the Vancouver Olympics opening ceremonies. About 300 people turned out for Delta's celebrations last February 12.
The chair of the 2010 Construction Leaders Taskforce, Phil Hochstein, supports VANOC's decision to award the oval to Richmond. "From a construction perspective, this is exactly the kind of gutsy decision that Mr. Furlong and VANOC need to make to minimize Olympic construction costs," says Hochstein. "It's great to see they're showing leadership on behalf of taxpayers and they should be congratulated." The Taskforce involves senior executives from 20 of BC's largest construction companies and was established itself to advise government and games organizers on issues such as labour supply, tendering and construction costs -- and offset the lobbying of B.C. Trades Council, among others.
As the Olympic Flame ceremonies conclude the Athens Games, as similar ceremony will be taking place in Squamish, a town between Vancouver and Whistler, to conclude a three-day weekend aimed at instilling Olympic values in disadvantaged youth as a 2010 warm-up. The culturally funded group O-Zoneis organizing the Adventure Leadership Program. A torch will be lit near a totem on the Stawamus Indian Reserve, and aboriginal youth in a traditional war canoe will take it across the Mamquam Blind Channel to the Squamish Yacht Club. A motorcade will escort it to the Leadership Program's Camp Summit in the nearby community of Brackendale. Individuals will then carry the torch to a podium, lighting an Olympic-style cauldron on stage. During the three-day camp, the youngsters will hear prepared comments from about half a dozen athletes who've taken part in previous Olympics.
Lisa Valdez is a city planner who lives near Charlotte, North Carolina, and she's thinking about being a spectator in the stands when the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics opens at General Motors Place February 12, 2010. But, as she told the 150,000 readers of the Charlotte Observer newspaper today, it's not because she wants to see professional athletes from the United States win gold medals. She wants to come to Vancouver because, as she sits on her couch and watches the TV coverage of the Athens Games, she becomes enamoured with the personal stories of the young amateurs. As she puts it, "The same hope that got them to Athens only lives in the heart of a child. Injuries and grueling training hours haven't jaded them. They dream in gold, and they wait four years for their chance at it." Valdez adds, "Most people, particularly those of us who are athletically challenged, can't help but live vicariously through them. They all make it look so easy... As I watch Michael Phelps swim the 200-meter butterfly, and win the gold, it makes me think that even I can do it. Of course, I've been in the pool at the YMCA and it isn't as easy as he makes it look... I can't help but be happy for them, and I just want to explode with pride... This is why someday I will go to the opening and closing ceremonies. I want to cheer them on in the beginning and applaud them in the end. It's the least I can do."

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 20, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #480
BROKER SOUGHT TO HANDLE CUSTOMS DUTIES UNTIL 2010

The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee is looking for a customs broker to handle goods it will be importing or exporting between British Columbia and countries such as the United States, between now and at least 2010.

The broker -- who has until September 9, 2004 to submit a bid on RFP 17 for doing the work to VANOC's Jim Bornholdt -- will be handling, Bornholdt estimates, about 10 transactions a month between now and 2008. Business is then expected to ramp up significantly through 2009, though no estimates are given. "Although many items will be purchased from within Canada," Bornholdt says, "the volume of shipments that will need to clear Canada Customs is expected to increase [in 2009]. A broad range of commodities is expected to be imported including such items as computer and electronics equipment, sporting goods and facilities supplies... Goods that are imported for VANOC will typically arrive by means of mail, courier, truck and airfreight."

The broker VANOC's looking for will be dealing quite a bit with the federal government's Canada Border Services Agency, and looking after such things as ensuring the goods move across the border smoothly by dealing with the necessary (and sometimes considerable and fastidious) paperwork. It will also deal with handling duties, both paid and received and ensuring VANOC gets the money from rebates and the like that it's due.

VANOC wants at least two of the broker's people assigned for customer service and although it expects service to be handled during normal business hours, it also wants to ensure it has 24/7 contact on an emergency basis via a toll-free phone number with global access, and it wants its routine voice-mail or e-mail handled within 30 minutes.

RESOURCES

Jim Bornholdt's contact info:
Tel: 604.806.4076
Fax: 604.683.2010
E-mail: jim_bornholdt@vancouver2010.com

Here's a look at what the Canada Border Services Agency requires for importing things to this country: http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/menu-e.html

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 19, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |IOC| #479
IOC PAYS AUSSIE C$1.6 MILLION TO OWN OLYMPIC GAMES KNOWLEDGE SERVICES, USED BY VANOC

The International Olympic Committee now fully owns Olympic Games Knowledge Services. It's paid C$1.64 million for the shares owned until now by its partner Monash University of Australia with whom it created OGKS in 2002.

OGKS has its roots in capturing the know-how acquired by the Sydney Organizing Committee and related organizations as they created the 2000 Olympic Games, and added some material from the Atlanta Games in 1996.

Since then, it's acquired the knowledge of the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, and the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee was the first Organization Committee to fully tap into that database, and it's adding to the experiences as it goes. The Beijing 2008 Games are using some of it, and the bid cities for 2012 are also involved now. The change in ownership will have no affect on VANOC, and the cost of its subscription is included in the monies it pays the IOC as a host city.

OGKS was valued at C$518,800, which meant that Monash's portion was nominally worth C$171,000. But the university also received C$1.04 million for the amortization value of the development of the business plan and C$88,200 in goodwill.

IOC officials say there wasn't anything negative that led to the decision about buying the Aussie university's ownership in their offspring, but rather it was prompted by a much more extensive review of IOC operations.

IOC Member and OGKS Chairman Kevan Gosper says, "Our partnership with Monash Ed has been extremely successful and we are grateful to their valuable contribution over the last years. The decision to end our cooperation was made in mutual agreement."

Craig McLatchey. CEO of Olympic Games Knowledge Services, is among the speakers at the International Sports Security Summit in London, England, to be held on October 27 and 28.

RESOURCES

Olympic Games Knowledge Services website. Although you need to be assigned an account and password by the IOC to access the info, the site gives a good description of the kinds of services it provides VANOC and others.
http://www.ogks.com/ogkspublic/controller/home.htm

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 19, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #478
ROOTS UPGRADES OVERSEAS WORK POLICY; SPORTSCAN AND COC SET UP SPORT REVIEW PANEL; WHISTLER EXECS IN ATHENS

Some more moguls we've bumped into today...

Roots Canada, an Olympics sponsor for several years that's expected to be involved with 2010, says it is upgrading its policies covering work in overseas plants to ensure its clothing isn't made under sweatshop conditions. The new policy comes after Roots has had about two years worth of experience after shifting some of its production from Canada to southeast Asian countries. All of the clothing provided to Canadian athletes by Roots during the 2004 Athens Olympics was made in Canada, but Roots also supplies uniforms to several other countries. The new policy is expected to match the policies of companies such as Nike.
The federal government's Sport Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee are collaborating on a new Sport Review Panel and they are once again reworking their policies about how to support Canadian elite athletes heading for future Olympics, including 2010. Alastair Mullin, spokesman for Sports Minister Stephen Owen, says the overall goal of the new panel is, "to look at not just 2006, not just 2008, not just 2010 but to grow a sports system, as the Australians have or many other countries have, which will do Canada proud at Olympics after Olympics." Elite athletes receive a stipend of $1,100 per month. The focus of the new panel's efforts is, apparently, to support athletes with the best chance of winning medals, but the details haven't yet been released.
Among the people taking part in the Olympics' official Observer Program in Athens to see how the behind-the-scenes aspects of the Games works are three from Whistler, which is co-hosting the 2010 Games. They include Whistler mayor Hugh O’Reilly, municipal administrator Jim Godfrey, deputy administrator Bill Barratt and Mike Vance, general manager of Community Initiatives.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 19, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Moguls| #477
ODDS AND SODS ABOUT THE RICHMOND OVAL; QUALICUM BEACH MAYOR LIMPING TO WHISTLER; ARMSTRONG ARENA BREAKS GROUND THIS MONTH

Some moguls we've bumped into today...

Some additional tidbits connected with the proposed Richmond speed-skating oval venue for the 2010 Games: Richmond's chief administrative officer is George Duncan. The Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee senior vice-president of Venues, Steve Matheson, is the man who will be dealing with the Olympic Committee's C$60 million investment and he's also the type of guy who likes to get a good bang for his bucks. Matheson, in his former role as vice-president of Dominion Construction, came to know quite well the capabilities of the people involved in Richmond City Hall. He was the guy in charge of that City Hall's construction a couple of years ago. Construction on the 110,642 square-metre (363,000-square foot) oval is expected to start in the fall of 2005 and complete, as we mentioned earlier, by October 31, 2007. Seating capacity during the Games will be 8,000, but that will be reduced to 2,000 permanent seats post-Games, when the oval will be transformed into a multi-use complex capable of hosting summer and winter sports, in addition to other events. Aircraft landing or taking off from the area of the Vancouver International Airport will see the building. As a result, the building is now starting to be compared to them. For instance, in space that holds the oval and two Olympic-sized ice rinks could also hold four DC-10 aircraft parked wing-to-wing, although they'd be hard to get in or out.
With the singular exception of Burnaby's acerbic mayor Derek Corrigan -- who has spent the last couple of days angrily denouncing VANOC CEO John Furlong over the VANOC Board's Richmond oval decision -- the general response of the Richmond public appears to be positive. Richmond held a public information meeting last night that was well attended. While people are somewhat skeptical that property taxes won't be raised to help pay for the new complex, they appear ready to lends their moral support for now. A second public information meeting will be held tonight. The two meetings are, in part, a method of offsetting VANOC's bid requirements of secrecy until the award was announced.
The mayor of Qualicum Beach, a small community of the east coast of Vancouver Island, is Teunis Westbroek. He has a bum knee but he still plans to follow up on a request from City of Fort St. John Mayor Steve Thorlakson. Thorlakson has urged municipal leaders to join his Walk to Whistler campaign to demonstrate support for the 2010 Winter Olympics, and in a letter to them has enclosed a pedometer. Westbroek, recovering from knee surgery, says he'll use the pedometer to measure the distance he's walked until he has logged the equivalent of 137 kilometres, which is the distance between Qualicum Beach and Whistler. His distance, along with that of other B.C. civic officials, will be logged on Thorlakson's web site at http://www.walktowhistler.com .
The mayor of Armstrong, Jerry Oglow, is planning on a campaign to encourage international competitors in the 2010 Olympics use its new arena, which will have an NHL-sized ice rink, for training. The ground will be broken on construction of the rink in the Okanagan-area community in B.C.'s interior on August 25. "We're going to have a first-class venue here," says Oglow, "and it will be available well before the Olympics, so we want people to experience the flame in Armstrong." The arena is expected to be completed by next May.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 19, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |Business| #476
TORONTO ENTERTAINMENT COMPLEX TO ALLOW VISITORS TO EXPERIENCE WINTER OLYMPIC SPORTS

Vancouver visitors to Toronto will be able to experience some of what it's like to take part in a Winter Olympics when the C$40 million "Olympic Spirit Toronto" entertainment complex opens its doors on Saturday, August 21.

The 15.8 thousand square-metre venue will provide more than 20,000 hours of Olympic film footage, several Summer and Winter Games sports simulators, static and interactive displays of Olympic trivia, memorabilia and sports equipment, a 200-seat restaurant and retail store. The attraction, an experiment funded by the International Olympic Committee to see if the concept is commercially feasible, is expected to take between two and three hours to experience.

"About 50% of the content will have a Canadian Olympic theme and 50% will be international," according to Brian Stemmle, Spirit's Chief Leisure Officer. Stemmle is a former Canadian Olympian on the Alpine Ski Team, but he's not the only one who knows where Vancouver is located. Olympic Spirit chief operating officer Peter Doyle worked on EXPO'86 in Vancouver and the 1988 Calgary Olympic Winter Games. As part of a licensing arrangement, a portion of revenues will be paid to the Canadian Olympic Committee for athletic programs.

Visitors will be able to participate several sophisticated winter-sport simulators on site. They can recreate a world-record long jump, race against their friends in the sprint challenge, push-start a real bobsled, experiment with figure-skating spins or take shots at an Olympic hockey goalie. They can take part in the biathalon by skiing for up to a minute and then shooting at virtual targets. There's even a ski-jump to try, along with simulators for speed-skating and curling.

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 18, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC
Sports| #475
RICHMOND, CALGARY SPEED-SKATING OVALS LIKELY TO AVOID COMPETING WITH EACH OTHER

Jean Dupre, Director General of Speed Skating Canada, says the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee's decision to choose Richmond's speed-skating oval complex over Simon Fraser University's fits with the organization's 2010 strategic goals.

"We made a very strong effort to determine where we wanted to position ourselves for 2010 and after 2010 at our recent annual general meeting," he says. "We took the time to fully understand and fully analyze our current strategic direction in light of the fact that Vancouver was going to host the Games. We were able to put on paper what was important for Speed Skating Canada in a venue for 2010. Having heard [Richmond's proposal], this is a really great announcement for our sport. Our vision is fully in line with what has been presented."

Dupre expects that Richmond will follow through on what it says is the city's support of his organization's athletes. "We're hoping to win eight medals in long-track and seven medals in short-track out of the 35 medals that is required for Canada to be number one in 2010. This cannot happen without the support of VANOC and a great partnership with the venue facility."

Despite the plaudits, a review of Speed Skating Canada's "Vision 2010" document shows it to be a general vision of how the organization sees itself and its relationships to other generic sports organizations, but there are no specifics about the qualities of ovals it would like to see, and the names "Vancouver", "Simon Fraser University" or "VANOC" are not mentioned anywhere in the 17-page document. The only mention of an oval in the document is in an appendix line that talks about SSC's relationship with Calgary's oval.

One of the main considerations for VANOC when it was deciding between Simon Fraser University's proposal to install only a temporary ice facility for the Games, and Richmond's concept of having a permanent speed-skating oval was the legacy aspect of the projects. The construction of a second speed-skating oval in Western Canada would compete with the oval in Calgary, and there has been some debate within the speed-skating sector whether there is enough business to support two ovals that are, relatively speaking, fairly close to each other.

VANOC's senior vice-president for Sport, Cathy Priestner, a former Olymlpic speed-skating medal winner who has spent a lot of time at the Calgary oval, says she and Dupre both believe the two ovals need not be particularly competitive with each other.

"I think some decisions have to be made, working with Speed Skating Canada and working with the [Richmond] venue and with Calgary to determine what makes sense here, in terms of ice, such as the length of time we might have ice in, the periods in the year and so on, and also whether the focus is on development [skating] or high-performance. Certainly once people see the success of Canadian speed-skaters in 2010, that's going to spark a lot of interest by young kids and we'll got a lot of our youth involved, particularly given the Richmond's venues high population [in its catchment area]. I think both ovals are sustainable with vision and smart thinking about how you use them."

Dupre says that Skate Canada now has about 11,000 skaters in Canada. We use Calgary's oval as a high-performance training centre in long track skating. We believe that another facility in the west could compliment what is taking place in the programs in Calgary. One that is more focused on regional training centres or a national development training centre will make Richmond a great hosting facility. I think, in the long run, Richmond could provide that."

Priestner also says the opportunity for concentrating on short-track training at Richmond is large. "B.C. has a history of strong short-track skaters, but they've never had dedicated facilities and access to ice. Calgary has both short and long-track, but it's more long-track focused. Short-track has grown a bit, but long-track will always be the bigger sport there. Here we have the opportunity to do more with short-track on a permanent basis."

BACKGROUND
==========

Dupre is pronounced: Dew-PRAY

RESOURCES

Speed Skating Canada website:
http://www.speedskating.ca

Speed Skating Canada's "Vision 2010" PDF document (128 k, 17 pages):
<http://www.speedskating.ca/eng/management/documents/Vision_2010_StrategicPlan_001.pdf

Originally published to Morgan:News:2010:Gold subscribers on August 18, 2004

Morgan:News:2010 |VANOC| #474
(FEATURE) MARKETING DIRECTOR STARTS TO TAKE UP 2010 REVENUE-GENERATION REINS

The senior vice-president of Revenue, Marketing and Communications for the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, Dave Cobb, says he came away from Athens with a number of ideas about how to do marketing for the 2010 Games.

Cobb was one of about 30 VANOC staffers who travelled in the last week or so to see the back-end operations of the 2004 Summer Olympics, one of only three opportunities to see such Games in operation before Vancouver's turn. Cobb, however, has only been on the job for about two weeks and he's clear that he still has a great deal more information to absorb before he can start offering direction to VANOC. But he says he did come away with ideas on revenue generation for 2010.

"It was a fantastic learning experience. I met with the heads of probably a dozen companies that will either be, or we hope to be sponsors of our Games. There were some Canadian companies in Athens that I spent some time with. It was great for us they were there because they could see how big these Games are, and what the Games can provide the sponsors. I also spent some time with the international sponsors, too. I met with the television networks, I met with the IOC marketing people, people from the other organizing committees for the Games before we have ours [Turino, Italy, and Beijing, China]. They were all generous with information to share with us."

In a wide-ranging interview on his return to Vancouver, Cobb also says he paid particular attention to the various reasons advanced for the short-fall in Athens Olympic ticket sales. The reasons include security fears, worries about whether stadiums would be completed, as well as transportation and accreditation problems. Also noted was that the average income is $C14,000 and that ticket pricing may have been a factor. Add to that, about half of the population of Athens leaves the city during the summer and goes to the Greek islands or to other parts of Europe, while European travel to Greece by car from Europe would have been affected by concerns about driving through the Balkans.

"There are probably 10 different reasons. We don't know the reason why for certain, because we're not from that community, but certainly all the negative publicity surrounding the Games -- all the negative talk about venues not being done, to the weather, to the smog -- the media just put out so many reasons why people should not go to Athens, and I think that cost [Athens organizers]."

But Cobb says it was a good lesson for him to experience. "We will need to be pro-active on our communication plans, on getting accurate information out there, letting the world know all the reasons why they _should_ come to Vancouver. We'll be working on that plan early, and we're confident that we're starting from a good position, because people love to come to this city."

Cobb, who was chief operating officer of Orca Bay Entertainment, the owner of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team, said it's difficult for him to give specific ideas of revenue generation as a result of seeing what was taking place in Athens. "I saw one week [that was the result] of years of work. What you see at the [Athens] Games is the exposure the sponsors get during that period, but you don't see the execution of the programs because they will have been done by now. When we enter into sponsorship programs with our sponsors, they will be for eight years, so we've got to come up with promotional opportunities that start well in advance of the Games themselves. It's different from a professional sporting event in Vancouver. When you go to a Canuck game, what you see is the signage of the sponsors on the rink boards. VANOC's not selling signage; in fact, we can't. But we saw the look of the Games, the whole creative elements around the Games -- everything from the identification of the volunteers to the uniforms and the colours they wore, the design, all of that stuff. You see it working, and you see what doesn't work so well."

Cobb says that talking to various potential sponsor companies, he started to see what was important to them, such as hospitality opportunities that sponsors had purchased. "They had a marketing club there, which was a spot where the sponsors could gather. That's where I spent time, and it was helpful."

Cobb notes that VANOC can't sell sponsorships legally for the 2010 Games until January 1, when a new marketing agreement between VANOC and the International Olympic Committee, an agreement which is still to be finalized, is due to take over from the end of the Bid Phase marketing agreements. "We're hoping to get together sometime towards the end of September with the IOC people responsible for it and take a couple of days to at least get us down to the final main points. We'll try to knock a hole in the small stuff and if there are a few items that we can't come to agreement on, we hope to get to that stage by the end of September or October -- somewhere in there." Cobb says the staff of both sides are still working out whether the IOC staff will come to Vancouver, or he and his support staff will go to IOC headquarters in Switzerland. "We're hoping they come here, but we'll see."

Telus and Bell Canada have both submitted sponsorship bids for the telecommunications component of the 2010 Games, but Cobb says that the two bids, by themselves, are not advancing the timetable. "Both companies took it upon themselves to deliver unsolicited proposals to us. We're not entitled to sign agreements with anybody yet; we have to complete our marketing planning agreement first, which we're working our way through now. Once we get that done, the IOC may give us permission to enter into agreements before January 1, but as of now, we can't. It was simply the interest of those two companies to speed up the process."

However, Cobb says that he's not going to be part of the evaluation team that reviews the telecommunication sponsorship bids. "It was well underway before I started, so I'm sort of on the sidelines for that one." As to whether he'll be able to insert himself into the process at some point, he says only, "We'll see."

Previous sponsorship experiences with other Olympics suggest that public response to sponsorship activities doesn't really start to build until about two years before the Games are held, and then dissipates fairly quickly. VANOC, for the first time in Games history, negotiated an eight-year sponsorship agreement with the IOC, but Cobb says his initial impression indicates that VANOC will not have any problem in convincing companies to agree to eight-year terms. "The interest that we're seeing already would indicate, if that [experience] has happened in the past, it may not continue. The more we sign up companies now, the more they'll be able to take advantage of the Torino Games [in 2006], which are only 18 months away, and we've been given strong indications by a number of companies that the value is higher if they do it now, because they'll have an opportunity to get into the marketplace well before the Torino Games."

One of the things Cobb says he is thinking about exploring is overlap possibilities with the 2006 Winter Games and sponsorships. "I don't know how much overlap there would be. Whether there are Italian companies interested in s