Déjà vu at the Olympics
13 April 2011
Lane4 Commercial Director Matt Rogan draws parallels between the 1948 London Olympics and the forthcoming 2012 London Olympics in this HR Magazine article.
We are less than 500 days away from the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. On one level, the six years since Britain won the right to host the Games has flown by, but the scale of the challenge Seb Coe's team have faced has become greater. The economic model and delivery of a 'legacy' plan are challenged by staggering levels of public debt amid financial meltdown. Commercial purse strings have been tightened, which has made balancing the books through sponsorship a struggle.
Britain has seen it all before. When we last hosted the Games in 1948, public debt was far higher than today, running at 200% of GDP. Clement Attlee's Government made no contribution to the Games and there was no blueprint for commercial funding. Rationing was worse even than during the war years and Britain's population was malnourished and disillusioned.
Despite the inconceivably challenging contexts, UK Olympic leaders delivered in 1948 and are showing every sign of doing so again in 2012. This has been possible because of the ability of two sets of Olympic leaders to innovate in a time of austerity and to challenge the status quo.
Download the article below to read the HR Magazine article in full.
2011-04-13