Olympic turnaround: How the Olympic Games Stepped Back from the Brink of Extinction to Become the World's Best Known Brand - and a Multi Billion Dollar Global Franchise

The story of the Olympic Games contains some remarkable business lessons. It is the story of how the nearly-bankrupt Olympic movement edged away from the abyss through visionary, and sometimes hard-headed leadership and the creation of a unique corporate marketing platform. Olympic Turnaround tells for the first time how the future of one of the world’s iconic institutions was secured. It is the story of a fine balancing act as an amateur organization struggled with and eventually embraced the business world. But it did so on its own terms, maintaining its identity, not compromising its core values and, in the process, establishing many of the ground rules of today’s sports marketing industry. Olympic Turnaround is also the story of the broadcast industry’s love affair with sport. It charts how companies began to understand the power of sport as a marketing and promotional tool. It is also a cautionary tale of success and failure – about how some nations learned to embrace the potential of hosting the world, while others, because of short-sighted political agendas, failed to see the opportunity. Packed with previously untold stories and case studies, this is the commercial story of the world’s most valuable and important franchise, the largest event in the world, the Olympic Games.