The latest battle of the 2012 London Olympics isn’t taking place in an arena, but rather in the corporate board room. This week, several American Olympic track and field stars engaged in a digital protest via Twitter, Facebook, and personal blogs, protesting the strict demands of Olympic Rule 40, which forbids athletes from promoting their personal sponsors during the Games (and three days after), if those sponsors are not an official partner.
The protests have included several track and field athletes, some of whom have tweeted pictures of themselves with tape over their mouths with “Rule 40” written over it.
Companies like McDonald’s, BMW, and Adidas — all of whom are approved Olympic partners — have paid top dollar to have their brands exposed and well-positioned throughout the games. These brands bought those rights with the promise of near-exclusivity, and should be protected. However, many feel that Rule 40 needs some fine tuning.
One reason: not all categories of sponsors will be affected by the terms and conditions of the rule equally. McDonald’s doesn’t have to worry about an Olympic swimmer being shown on television eating a Whopper poolside. Nor would BMW be concerned about a gymnast’s televised arrival in a Cadillac Escalade. Meanwhile, Adidas gets a product placement advantage that McDonald’s and BMW don’t receive, because after accentuating their ensembles with a few accessories like headbands, wristbands, and socks, Adidas-sponsored athletes will be prime-time mobile billboard ads.
For that reason, the playing field of Rule 40 needs to be leveled.
As it presently stands, Adidas’ competitors are the most unfairly disadvantaged by the guidelines of Rule 40. Adidas might be an official sports partner of the Olympics, but the reality is that athletes believe that their preferred brand empowers them to perform, and therefore to make an Olympic team. Shouldn’t athletes be allowed to continue to associate themselves their sponsors during the Games? One fix for this could be a clause granting certain privileges to competing athletic apparel companies and other sponsors whose products are related to an athlete’s performance.
For example, runner Sanya Richards-Ross, one of the highest profile athletes supporting the anti-Rule 40 protest, is sponsored by Nike. If Richards-Ross earned a spot to represent her country while competing and promoting Nike apparel, she believes she should be allowed to market — or at least discuss — the brand during the Olympics. At minimum, she and other athletes should be able to promote those items that they feel improve their performance.
After all, the primary objective of the Olympics, corporate dollars aside, is to bring home medals. Therefore, all athletes should be encouraged to promote the brands that give them the best chance of achieving that goal.
It’s easy to see how sports beverage companies like Gatorade and Powerade could become as territorial during the Olympics as a clothing company like Adidas. Sports energy drinks could directly enhance the endurance of an athlete, transforming them from an Olympic hopeful into a national hero. If an athlete sponsored by Gatorade (who also drinks it) wants to “shout-out” the beverage on their Twitter account after winning a gold medal, what’s the harm? Even if Powerade is an official partner of the games?
I hardly think that a track star’s Twitter account or a Facebook page with a few thousand fans, friends, and followers truly challenges the multi-platform, global media advertising campaigns that Olympic partners launch during the Games.
The Olympics are the largest worldwide competition for any athlete. Their sponsors, who may have supported them for years leading up to the Games, should receive some acknowledgement as their brand ambassadors finally find success on the big stage.
The International Olympic Committee disagrees, and threw a javelin through the independent promotional efforts of track and field athletes by forcing them to remove photos, tweets, blog posts, and any other type of social media activity that advertised a competing brand of an official sponsor.
If Adidas is that concerned about what athletes like Richards-Ross are doing on their social networks, perhaps it should have recruited her for her promotional services.
Out of fairness to both the athletes and the Olympics’ official corporate partners, an adjusted Rule 40 could regulate corporate-sponsored athletes’ digital activity during the Olympics without banning it outright. Tweets and other forms of digital traffic can be a distraction to an athlete, so it seems unlikely that they would spend much time tweeting, blogging or hanging out on Facebook anyway.
Advertising their sponsored products is not what they are actually in London to do. The Olympians have a right to freedom of expression through their sport, and at least to some degree through connecting to their fan base. That latter form of expression should include discussing the sponsors who have made their appearance at the Olympics possible.
Dwayne McClary writes about sports for theGrio. Follow him on Twitter at @dmcboxingjudge.