BAC

23 Mar 2009

Athletes have recently received (or will shortly receive) a new Performance Athlete Agreement (PAA) from their NGB, along with a “deed” document, which asks them to gift the three days included in their PAA, and associated image rights, to their NGB and UK Sport for the purposes of raising commercial money to support the World Class Programme. This will be done through a scheme called team2012.

A few weeks ago the BAC saw a first draft of the deed, and was concerned about certain clauses within it which could affect all athletes, and other clauses which could affect athletes with commercial interests (or those who may develop commercial interests in the future). We entered into a consultation period with UK Sport, and as a result, most of the sections of the deed that we were unhappy with were amended. However, there are still clauses in the deed which may cause concern for those athletes who are active commercially, and we have highlighted these below.

For those athletes that already have exclusive agreements there is no immediate problem, the scheme will honour those agreements and will not require them to take part in any visit which conflicts with a current sponsor. The scheme will instead ask them to make an appearance for a partner in a different sector. Indeed most athletes will not have a problem with signing the deed, because they do not have commercial sponsors. However for athletes that are active commercially, and those who will be in the future, the obvious question will be “how is signing this deed going to affect my commercial activities and potential?”

The essential points of this deed that may affect athletes with commercial interests are that:

1) Athletes will not be able to sign any deal with a Scheme partner, without the permission of UK Sport

This means that as there is already a deal in place between the athlete and the scheme partner, it will take precedence over any deal they wish to make with that partner, (but it does not mean such a deal will automatically not be possible.)

2) Athletes cannot sign any deal with any other sponsor which precludes them from taking part in the scheme.

This point has two aspects to it:
• It will be all but impossible for an athlete to sign a deal with any competitor to the team 2012 “presenting partner” There are very few companies that would be happy to sponsor an athlete knowing that the athlete would have to make appearances for a competitor, wearing the competitors logo.
• It will still be possible to sign deals with competitors to other scheme partners, but there is the possibility that the value of those deals will be reduced by the fact that the athlete could be making appearances for the scheme partner.

3) Athletes images can be used by scheme partners to promote their involvement in the scheme

The effects of this are difficult to quantify. Because the scheme is not up and running, it is not known how the athletes’ images will be used, and if this will affect in any way the commercial value of the athlete to potential sponsors. The rights that will be asked for however, are detailed in the deed.

We would like to stress at this point that the idea behind the scheme is certainly sound, it is that sport needs to find alternative ways to fund itself other than the public purse and lottery money. Athletes absolutely have a responsibility to put back into sport, and three days is in no way an unreasonable demand on any athlete’s time. It is also a valid point that because many athletes success is built up on the back of receiving public funding in the past, they should maybe accept that a small reduction in their commercial value is a reasonable price to pay to help the system begin to fund itself in the future.

However, athletes do have commercial rights and should be allowed to use them. The schemes creators say that it will have no effect on an athlete’s commercial rights (see the Q&A document released by UK Sport) However, it seems clear to the BAC that the scheme will limit the extent of the individual commercial rights of some athletes, just how much is difficult to quantify.

So what should athletes do?

If an athlete feels they will not be affected by any of the points raised above, either now or in the future. They should sign the deed and get on with training!

If they feel you will be affected by any of the points raised above, it is important that they take the time to get the necessary advice either from their NGB, their agent, their lawyer or whoever else they use to advise them on these matters before they sign their Performance Athlete Agreement or the deed document.