One year after Chicago’s unsuccessful bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, Chicago Sports & Entertainment Partners' Patrick Quinn reflects on the aftermath and the current state of affairs of the Olympic and Chicago sports sponsorship landscape.

Patrick Quinn on athlete sponsorships and endorsement deals:

“I remember being on board a flight bound for Chicago at the time the decision was officially announced.  Scott (Scott Kirkpatrick – CSEP Partner) and I were returning from a corporate sponsorship client meeting out west and he had convinced the pilot to let us know the minute the decision was made public.  At one point during the flight he simply walked past me and handed me a tiny piece of paper, it was a bit of ticker-tape from the cockpit that broke the news – Chicago was out in the first round.  It was over.  I remember my first reaction was that I must be misunderstanding the scrap of paper in my hand, that Chicago could not possibly be the first city out of the hunt to host the Olympics.  Unfortunately, it was all so disappointingly true…ugghhh!   I literally felt a bit sick.

Jeannie (Goldstein - CSEP Partner), Scott and I all come from different areas of the sports sponsorship business, but one of our strong suits is Olympic sponsorship.  We were quite ready to take the Chicago Olympic bull by the horns to drive our company into the stratosphere.  Oh well.  Since then, despite a still much challenged economy, in regards to the Olympic sponsorship business we were able to ride the wave of Vancouver 2010 Games to ease the blow of the vaporized Chicago 2016 bid.  We secured quite a few corporate sponsorship and endorsement deals (actually, more than any Olympics prior) both for the athletes we represent as well as many others we don’t, with some great blue chip sponsors the likes of McDonald’s, Nike, P&G, GE and Comcast.  We also saw more activity than ever with smaller, and even very small companies who took interest in jumping into sports sponsorships via individual athletes even though for many of them their budgets were fairly limited.  One in particular that jumps to mind was skeleton athlete Zach Lund’s sponsorship by head razor company HeadBlade.  This may very well be one of the best brand fits I’ve ever seen.

The other sponsorship deal that jumps to mind for me was Stephen Colbert’s ‘Colbert Nation’ sponsorship of the US Speedskating Team.  For the record, we had nothing to do with it, but I think it was absolutely brilliant and worked out very well for all parties.  We were able to parlay that into a guest appearance on the show for speedskater Katherine Reutter where she was joined by Snoop Dogg.

 By late spring/early summer the hype surrounding the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, even for those athletes who had won medals, had quieted, as is always the case, and the transition back to focusing on summer Olympic athletes slowly began.  Interestingly, we’re already seeing a number of big corporate sponsors moving forward with summer Olympic athlete sponsorship plans which is a bit sooner than I can remember from prior Olympiads.  I’m hypothesizing that the Beijing Olympics were such a success, really on a global level, that companies inclined to do athlete sponsorship deals don’t want to be late in at least planning for the big party that will be the London Olympics.  We’re excited to have some marquee talent to serve up to them like double gold medalist, fencer Mariel Zagunis, and the newly crowned national triathlon champion Laura Bennett.

Outside of the Olympic space, Chicago is such a great sports town that sports sponsorship and endorsement deals for its athletes are always there to be had in some way, shape or form.  With the great run to the Stanley Cup that the Blackhawks had, team Captain Jonathan Toews is cashing in on a few deals and if he can get the Hawks off to a strong start this season after all of the player personnel changes this summer I’d sure love to be the guy chasing endorsements on his behalf.

Contrast that to Jay Cutler, who is the first one to admit he didn’t play last season as he (and the entire Chicagoland area) would have liked so he’s intentionally not pursuing endorsement deals and keeping his focus on playing better ball.  I think it’s a smart move, the right move, and frankly, a classy move that could pay dividends down the line.  So far so good as the Bears are now (unexpectedly) 3-0 and with each win Cutler’s potential endorsement stock rises.  Granted, Cutler doesn’t need the money, but it’s still nice to see athletes think about the big picture of their athletic career which is something we try to instill in all the athletes we represent.