Patrick Nally (born 1947) is a British entrepreneur and specialist consultant. He is widely acknowledged as the 'Founding Father' of modern sports marketing'Founding Father', Chris Britcher, SportBusiness International (May 2003), p.36-38 'In From The Cold', Kevin Roberts, SportBusiness International (July 2010), pp. 26–28 'In From the Cold' (ABRIDGED), Kevin Roberts, SportBusiness International Online (1 July 2010) and a principal pioneer of today's sports business industry.'The Clarion Call Has Sounded', James Emmett, SportsPro Magazine (December 2010/January 2011), pp. 48–52
Early life Born in 1947 to parents who met while serving in the Royal Navy, Nally grew up in Clapham, south London, the youngest of three children born in consecutive years. A chess champion at Spencer Park School in Wandsworth, he gravitated towards his parents' professions of journalism and public relations, beginning his career in business as a messenger boy at Notley Advertising before joining the Erwin, Wasey & Company advertising agency as a junior accounts executive. His mother Margaret Nally, who was the first female chair of the National Union of Journalists' Press & P.R. department 'Public Relations: Critical Debates and Contemporary Practices' by Jacquie L’Etang & Magda Pieczka (Routledge, 2006), Chapter 8: The Evolution of British Public Relations, p. 165 and the first female President of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR): 'Past presidents' is commemorated each year at a Memorial Lecture given at Britain's House of Lords. Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR): 'Full House for the 2008 Nally Memorial' Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR): 'Margaret Nally Memorial Lecture'
West Nally Having been introduced to the journalist, BBC presenter and sports commentator Peter West in 1969, Nally founded the West Nally Group the following year as a public relations agency with a specialised sporting events mandate.'Sport on Brink of New Era', Lauren McMullen, Marketing (14 January 1988), pp. 22–23 'Obituary: Peter West’, The Daily Telegraph (4 September 2003) 'After 40 years, Everton's still on the Snooker Scene', Clive Everton, Snooker Scene (June 2010) With West as chairman, and managing director Nally its driving force, the company would go on to redefine the sports business industry by pioneering the offering to 'blue chip' companies of exclusive, off-the-shelf packages of sponsorship rights to the world's largest sports tournaments on behalf of the world's leading sports federations. Early successes included securing investment to establish the Masters in snooker, 'The day the Masters was born', BBC Sport (31 January 2002) the Squash World Open, and an annual one-day cricket competition which would run for three decades in the UK. In 1976, on brokering an agreement to sponsor the FIFA World Cup, the company assured its reputation as a leading innovator within the expanding sports marketing field. Employing over 400 staff in 14 offices across 11 countries in its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, West Nally has served as partner to, among others, the International Olympic Committee, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), 'Patrick Nally to make rare appearance at Sports Marketing 360', Bernardo Domingues, SportBusiness International Online (4 August 2010) the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the Davis Cup and Federation Cup in tennis, the Hockey World Cup, the International Swimming Federation (FINA), the International Rowing Federation (FISA), the International Cycling Union (UCI) UCI Academy: 'Presenters — Patrick Nally' and the FIS World Ski Cup. The company helped secure the financial foundations of the first London Marathon, held in 1981, before playing an instrumental role in the inception of the International Association of Athletics Federations' Track and Field Program and in initiating the World Athletics Championships, 'Hamdan Bin Mohammed Program for Sports Leadership Development hosts "father of sports marketing" at Blue Ocean Forum', AMEinfo (10 February 2009) first held in Helsinki in 1983. For the International Rugby Board (IRB), West Nally helped to commercially package and launch the Rugby World Cup, first held in 1987 in Australia and New Zealand. Known within the industry as the 'university of sports marketing' on account of its comprehensive training procedures responsible for cultivating a generation of leading sports business executives, the company's founder Patrick Nally was in 1988 described by Marketing magazine, along with Adidas owner Horst Dassler and IMG founder Mark McCormack, as one of the "three godfathers of sport" who at one time, between them, "controlled the commercial destinies of almost every major sports event in the world". Credited with first perceiving and harnessing sport's unique potential as a medium for global brand communication, Nally is today alternatively hailed as "the 'Founding Father' of sports marketing", 'Industry legend to make rare public address at Sports Marketing 360', Luke Upton, SportsMarketing360 (21 July 2010) "the father of modern sports marketing", "the founding father of the sports business industry", "the godfather of sports sponsorship" '10 things we learnt at Sports Marketing 360', Luke Upton, SportBusiness International Online (20 September 2010) and the 'Dean' of the 'Sports Marketing University'. In 2009, his pioneer status within the industry was recognised with a nomination in the 'Outstanding Contribution' category at SportBusiness Magazine'''s annual Sports Event Management Awards. '2009 SportBusiness Sports Management Awards Shortlist', Matt Cutler, SportBusiness International Online (12 October 2009)
Relationship with FIFA After playing an instrumental role in João Havelange's successful 1974 bid for the Presidency of FIFA, Nally set out to fulfil the campaign's election promise to expand the federation's global development programme. Having restructured FIFA's rules and regulations and modernised its commercial structure, Nally conceived and designed the FIFA World Youth Championship, first held in Tunisia in 1977, for which he secured sponsorship from the Coca-Cola Company. 'The Commercialisation of Sport' edited by Trevor Slack (Routledge, 2004), p. 274 The landmark agreement that followed, with which Coca-Cola became the primary sponsor of the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, would help set the cast for the future development of soccer globally, as the relationship between the FIFA World Cup and Coca-Cola matured to produce what has been described as "the biggest, most sustained corporate sponsorship programme in the world". Signed by West Nally in 1976, the original agreement is today considered a watershed moment within the evolution of the sports business industry. Nally himself has described it as "the best deal" he ever made. 'Patrick Nally: Godfather to an industry’, James Emmett, SportsPro (7 January 2011)
The ‘InterSoccer4’ Program After the 1978 World Cup, West Nally was awarded rights to all FIFA and UEFA competitions, including the European Cup Final, the European Nations Cup and the World Champions' Gold Cup, which the agency marketed together in a four-year package called the 'InterSoccer4'. Guaranteeing sponsors category exclusivity, advertising exposure, tickets and VIP access, after its successful implementation in the lead-up to the 1982 World Cup in Spain, the 'InterSoccer' model rapidly became the new industry standard by which sponsorship rights to international sporting events were administered. Signalling what has been called "sport's Big Bang Moment", the InterSoccer program's offer of a package of rights to multiple tournaments over several years is still today widely emulated across the sports business industry. According to SportBusiness International magazine, the concept became "the lingua franca of sports marketing for the next 20 years", confirming Patrick Nally as "in many respects, the man who made the World Cup what it is today". While the world's largest sports tournament grew to signify a multi-billion dollar sponsorship proposition, Nally oversaw the InterSoccer program's evolution through the 1986 and 1990 competitions, held respectively in Mexico and Italy, before helping to establish a dedicated company to host the 1994 World Cup in the US.
Support for Japan's 2022 World Cup Bid In 2009, Nally teamed with the organising committee of Japan's 2022 World Cup bid which, on 2 December 2010 in a ceremony in Zürich was finally awarded to Qatar. Based around the slogan '208 smiles', the centerpiece of the Japanese offering was a proposal to broadcast the tournament via 360-degree, 3D free viewpoint television to over 400 fan sites across FIFA's 208 member-nations. In his vocal support for the innovative, technology-driven offering which would have brought the World Cup to Asia for the second time in two decades, Nally openly criticised FIFA for adhering to a development model he had himself been instrumental in originating. "It was almost part of our development programme brief to take it to Asia, as it was to take it to Africa," he told SportsPro Magazine in the lead-up to the decision:
In the same article, Nally further admitted that he views the introduction of goal-line technology to the World Cup as all but "an inevitability".
Involvement with the International Olympic Committee Having established relationships with the British and Australian Olympic Associations in the late 1970s, Nally began working with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as an advisor to the organising committee of the 1980 Summer Games held in Moscow. Afterwards, he played a key role in laying the commercial foundations of the future of the Olympic Movement by adapting the InterSoccer program he'd devised for FIFA to the Olympic Games. The result was a package combining the rights of the IOC's organising committees and those of the national Olympic committees in one sponsorship deal. Initially rolled out for the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, the concept would culminate the following year in the launch of the IOC's innovative TOP (The Olympic Partners) program. 'IOC marks 25 years of TOP sponsorship', Matt Cutler, SportBusiness International Online (28 June 2010)
Foundation of SportAccord Through his decades-long association with the IOC and its longtime partner, the Japanese advertising and sponsorship agency Dentsu Incorporated, Nally has, over the course of his career, worked with an array of international Olympic and non-Olympic federations, helping them to ensure their commercial viability while also promoting enhanced global co-operation across the sporting world. His involvement with the General Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) dates from 1976 when he was instrumental in re-establishing the organisation and securing for it a permanent home in Monte Carlo. He later devised the GAISF Calendar to assist international sports federations in avoiding conflicting event schedules.
Campaigns on behalf of new Olympic Sports