Selling The Games To The Corporate World
Saturday, February 18, 2012 @ 5:05 AM
Prince George, B.C. – The person charged with getting the corporate world to open the pocketbook for 40 percent of the funding for the 2015 Canada Winter Games says a positive mindset is key in approaching the job.
Todd Doherty, the Director of Revenue Generation with the Games Host Committee says the region has to think big. “This is our Olympics and this is our opportunity to host the nation. These are dollars that are going to be spent here in our region to invest and build the infrastructure to give these northern athletes a chance to compete at levels they haven’t been able to before.” Doherty says “the challenge for us, as a community, is to think big enough for this.”
Here’s how big. Total operating budget for the games is $30 million. The committee expects $16 million will come from the federal and provincial governments, leaving the committee to raise $14 million (Doherty’s target is 15 million). Capital projects for the games total 17.4 million. The federal and provincial governments are in for 3 million each, leaving 11.4-million to come from the city.
Doherty says “it’s definitely going to be a challenge and a task but I think our team is up for it. A lot of work was done in the bid component of this and Prince George wouldn’t have got the bid if there wasn’t that amount of corporate support behind it already. We need to ensure that we’re out in front of the organizations right now and the corporate world, making sure that they’re aware of the Canada games coming up in 2015 so that some of our infrastructure programs can take off. We need to be out hat in hand so to speak early on in the process so that we can get some of those funds in.”
Doherty adds “We’re all here to leave a positive legacy in our region. The dollars that we’re raising are being spent here in Prince George and in our region. Not only that, the economic spinoffs are huge, 70 to 90 million dollars in spinoffs for 18 days, an 18 day commercial of what the north has to offer.”
The committee’s Director of Marketing and Communications, Mike Davis, says “it’s not only a sporting event but it’ll be the largest sporting and cultural event likely to ever take place in Prince George and in northern BC. Besides the regular sporting events we’ll have nightly entertainment and some other things that have never been done. So it’s going to be exciting, it’s going to be a party and we’ll have national broadcast partners in town, TSN and RDS will be broadcasting. We’re looking at ways ourselves where we can enhance the exposure of the athletes in our region so we’re looking at different models from webcasting, radio work, to really take it upon ourselves and taking advantage of the opportunity that we do have all of Canada in our own back yard and we want to share every story that we do have, from athletes to businesses to citizens to volunteers. We all live in Prince George and we’re proud to live here and it’s time to let the rest of Canada know how special our region is.”
Host Committee CEO Stu Ballantyne says the job done on these games will leave a lasting image in the minds of national organizations that look at host sites for future endeavors.
Comments
Should have built that new arena at Kin instead. We’d rather particpate in sports than be spectators.
Politicians however, prefer spending OUR $$ this way because THEY get exposure and it fuels THEIR egos.
Waste of taxpayer dollars.
Should have built that new arena at Kin instead. We’d rather particpate in sports than be spectators.
Politicians however, prefer spending OUR $$ this way because THEY get exposure and it fuels THEIR egos.
Waste of taxpayer dollars.
Is this the same Mike Davis who, as Communications Director the City of PG, was virtually invisible for 2 or 3 years while collecting a six-figure salary?
If the Winter Games get the same rate of communication we got from City Hall…I expect the news story above is the first and last we’ve heard from this individual.
But perhaps we’ll get lucky and Ballantyne will be far more demanding of his taxpayer-funded staff than Dan Rogers and crew ever were.
It was easy for them to get the $11.4 Million from the City because all they did was slap on another tax increase, for 5 years.
You end up paying for these games whether you support them or not.
We now get an apportunity to see how much the Corporate sector will contribute.
My guess is that they will include such Government entities as the Airport Authority, IPG, Northern Trust Initiative, etc as Corporations, so we will a chance to pay that portion also. We’ll have to wait and see.
It will be interesting to see how the lead up to these games unfold., Its a huge job, and hopefully they can hold it all to-gether.
Prince George Corporate Sponsors:
Down hill skiing sponsored by the Renegades,
Speed skating sponsored by the Independent Soldiers
Hockey brought to you by the fine folks at Game Tight Soldiers
well you said everyone!
middle finger, brillant idea. Why not get some of those criminals to pay for these games. LOL!
We do understand that we are still paying for the Olympics in more ways than one,and will be for quite a while?
Just thought I would mention that…
Middle Finger, if the Renegades, Independent Soldiers, and Game Tight Soldiers sponsor the events, I think we might find the cheerleaders are a little NSFW…
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