European Volleyball and Global Sports Marketing Unveil New Brand
It started with a postcard: it shows the Maldives with their sandy white beaches, seductive sunlight and emerald green water. The photo hangs prominently in the Zurich head office of Global Sports Marketing (GSM). The ambitious plan: to transport a stretch of the perfect islands in the Indian Ocean to Europe. The vehicle is called Beach Volleyball or more precisely the ‘European Championship Tour’. Together with the European Volleyball Confederation (CEV), GSM wishes to elevate the spectacle on sand onto a new platform in Europe. Supported by a unique branding concept, the tournament series featuring the continent’s best sand sloggers is to mature into a premium brand in the next few years. With a logo that has the emerald green water of the Maldives as its primary colour – a distinctive trademark.
The European Championship Tour will start with two events this year: the Greek Open from 10-13 July on Crete and the European Championship Final from 28-31 August at Alanya in Turkey.
For Global Sports Marketing, 2003 is a year in which they are seeking to reinforce and extend the presence for the European Championship Tour. ‘We have the chance to present our unique branding concept,’ says Christian Scholbrock, Managing Director at Global Sports Marketing. He has no doubt that the goal of the European Beach Volleyball circuit must be to also reach the core European countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain from 2004 onwards: ‘We want to build on and expand the European Championship Tour to other key markets.’
The prospects seem to be favourable: Beach Volleyball is one of the fastest growing sports worldwide. The teams from the leading nations of the sport, Brazil and the US, may continue to dominate the sand courts,’ but, ‘says Scholbrock, ‘Europe is catching up quickly.’ For some years now, pairings like the Laciga brothers from Switzerland or the Norwegians Kjemperud and Hoidalen have mixed it with the best in the world. For this reason alone, Scholbrock knows just ‘how strong the interest is to have a European scene with its own identification factor.’
This is a fact that should also arouse the curiosity of the television broadcasters, for ‘after all,’ so Scholbrock, ‘Beach Volleyball is an ideal product for television. And in contrast to other international tournaments, we are guaranteed European players in the final.’ The GSM Managing Director suspects that the European Championship Tour harbours ‘tremendous potential, if, with the support of television coverage, we can manage to build up and market heroes.’ At the same time though, the Beach Volleyball tournaments of the European Championship Tour do not just offer serious, top-class sport, but also an exciting accompanying atmosphere with sun, fun, beach, music, partying and lifestyle. An atmosphere that is so attractive that Beach Volleyball developed to the absolute winner at Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000. Now Scholbrock will ‘not only present top-class sport in Europe but also create social events that will make sponsors sit up and take notice.’
Whereby the net artists will always stand at the centre of attention. Which should not be a problem; after all, not only sporting plaudits are at stake, but a lot of prize money: e.g. € 200,000 stand to be earned in Alanya during the European Championship Final. In addition, the sporting status of the European Championships is to be enhanced because there the athletes can collect valuable Olympic qualification points. All in all an attractive package that can hardly be topped: ‘The European Championship Final,’ says Markus Dieckmann (reigning European Champion from Germany), ‘is for us, together with the World Championships at Rio, the absolute highlight of the season.’
GLOBAL SPORTS MARKETING LTD..
Ebelstrasse 27
CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland
Tel.: +41-43-244-9977
Fax: +41-43-244-9978
E-mail: christian.scholbrock@gsmglobalsports.com
www.gsmglobalsports.com