In many ways, the World Orienteering Championships are the archetype of a niche international sports event battling to balance the books.
Organisers scrap for every bit of cash and value-in-kind they can find from sponsors, with costs often needing to be underwritten by governments or governing bodies in order to keep the event alive.
As with most participation-focused events, this year’s Sprint World Orienteering Championships (SWOC) will largely fly under the radar as the latest edition gets underway in Edinburgh today (Friday). Whether in Scotland or any other market, the event will struggle to take audience away from likes of the Euro 2024 final or Wimbledon.
But regardless of its timing, it will attract audiences in small pockets of Europe thanks to the exposure granted by the European Broadcasting Union and its members – tantamount to gold dust for events such as the SWOC.
The event has faced rising costs after the Covid-19 pandemic pushed back its slot – originally scheduled for 2022 – to the summer of 2024. Margins on event delivery costs have since been squeezed, leading to EventScotland and Edinburgh Council agreeing to up their funding commitments to £250,000 (€297,000/$323,000) each, covering two thirds of the £750,000 budget.
Shorn of any noteworthy ticketing or hospitality revenue in a sport that generates only €350,000 ($380,000) globally from broadcast rights sales each year, organisers have relied on two main revenue streams to meet the remaining £250,000 shortfall: sponsorship and amateur race entry fees.
Commercial programme
Sponsorship sales executive and consultant Marc Hope was installed as commercial director of the organising committee just three months ago. Freelance event consultant Andy Mitchelmore was also hired as event director relatively late in the process overseeing a 15-person organising committee with just three-full time staff.
Approximately £50,000 has been raised in sponsorship fees by Hope and the organisers, and the same again in value-in-kind commitments.
The University of Edinburgh, Lothian Buses and Cullen Property pay low five-figure sums in cash and/or VIK as the three top-tier ‘Official Event Partners’. Cullen is making a cash commitment while the University of Edinburgh, arguably the most active of all the sponsors, will provide its campus for athlete functions and hospitality, promoting itself and its reputation for sport to the 40 per cent of students who enrol from overseas.
“Everything from kilts to printers we’ve got in free or as cheap as we can do.”
Event director Andy Mitchelmore
There are over 20 event supporters and suppliers, mainly paying in VIK or four-figure deals. These include Actiph alkaline ionised water, which is providing 4,500 units, Gordon Nicolson Kiltmakers providing highland outfits for medal ceremonies, Nairn’s Oatcakes supplying food for volunteers and Pie Sports providing 3,000 sausage rolls free of charge.
Event partners, suppliers and supporters will have varying access to a set of rights including event branding, digital assets, hospitality, use of a lockup logo, advertising hoardings, social media rights, big screen video, showcase stands and award ceremonies in the host city.
EventScotland and Edinburgh Council will lean heavily on their inventory assets to promote Scotland and the city as a destination. International Orienteering Federation (IOF) sponsors T-Kartor, the geospacial technology firm, and AJ Products, the office furniture retailer, will receive key branding positions although not in return for any cash component to the organisers.
For Mitchelmore, the expectation was not to generate “huge amounts of cash” through sponsorship for an event that does not resonate among the Scottish sporting public but instead bring in anything that “takes money off the bottom line”. He concedes that himself and Hope were “a little late to market” given the late stage at which they both came in.
“The remit to Mark and everyone across the team has been to be as creative as possible,” he tells SportBusiness. “Everything from kilts to printers we’ve got in free of charge or as cheap as we can do.
“We’ve got a few gains and losses across our overall budget sheet but we’re on track. As usual at this stage there are a couple of last-minute [items] but there’s nothing glowing red that is going to cause us any great concern.”
Organisers also have the protection of a budget back-stop with funding partners Scottish Orienteering and British Orienteering in place to meet a narrow shortfall.
Further revenue streams
Unlike other major championships in sports of a similar size, the World Orienteering Championships relies on paying amateur participants to offset a slice of the hosting costs. Orienteers, chiefly from the UK, Germany, the Nordics and Switzerland, travel to the event, often camping on site and paying to enter races during a near week-long festival.
As of two days out from the Championships, 1,325 entries had generated £90,000 for the organising committee.
There is scant return from any other revenue streams.
Merchandising is targeted to bring in a modest £5,500 sum but costs have been offset in a deal with Scimitar Sportswear. Instead of buying up large amounts of stock left unsold, customers are asked to order online and have their goods delivered, either ahead of the Championships or after trying on items on-site. A system of allocating volunteers to allow the collection of pre-ordered items at the event has been scrapped to better allocate resource.
Ticketing revenue is limited to the sale of only 500 seats at the start/finish line and merely offsets the venue hire cost. With generally free access, the event offers a festival-style vibe for the paying amateur racers or friends and family, while also drawing in curious passers-by in Edinburgh city centre.
Broadcast opportunity
By aligning with the EBU, the Championships have the ability to reach a sizeable live free-to-air audience. In reality, this means strong terrestrial audiences in the Nordics.
EBU members in Austria (ORF), the Czech Republic (Česká Televize), Finland (YLE), Norway (NRK) and Sweden (SVT) have all acquired the rights.
Hope says: “In central Europe and particularly in Scandinavia, orienteering is actually a huge sport, hence they’re going to broadcast it live on their main channels in many countries, which may seem quite surprising in the UK, but there is a real audience and appetite for it.”
Organisers could not convince the BBC to stream live coverage on its iPlayer and app so instead highlights will be aired on BBC Scotland’s ‘The Adventure Show’.
Elsewhere in Europe, live coverage is available on the IOF’s digital platform and, thanks to the new EBU agreement, streamed free on the consortium’s recently launched Eurovision Sport in France, Germany, the UK, Austria, Belgium and Ireland. While the EBU streaming addition has been welcomed by the IOF and organisers, raising public awareness for the platform – particularly for a niche event – remains a problem. The EBU continues to try and persuade its members to co-promote Eurovision Sport or allow it to be embedded on their platforms, but the threat of diverting the audience away from their often ad-funded platforms is a deterrent.
The strong Nordic television audience offered the prospect of mining additional sponsorship revenues. That opportunity was missed, however, according to Mitchelmore.
“I had hoped that there might be some Scottish brands who do business over there [Scandinavia] that would want to use us as a platform to promote themselves on terrestrial television over there,” he says. “We never quite cracked that.”
For Paul Bush, director of events at VisitScotland and leader of the EventScotland team, the chance to promote Scotland there as a destination has a real value. In its negotiations with rights-holders, EventScotland now looks to insert promotional videos as standard in the world feed, as it has done recently with the UCI World Championships and Scottish Open golf.
“Europe is a key market for Scotland but if you segment that down then Scandinavia is a key market,” he notes. “There are lots of direct flights to that region, and Estonia, also a massive market for orienteering. Our other key markets where it will also be distributed are France, Germany and Italy.”
Secret route
Each elite individual sprint will take just 15 to 20 minutes to complete across Edinburgh’s unique city topography, including the narrow and intricate alleys of the Old Town, the grand streets of the Georgian New Town and the iconic 12th century Edinburgh Castle, perched on a cliff above the city.
While the finishing line positions are publicised in advance, the start positions are kept secret. Moreover, the runners must be ‘quarantined’ from the city for three years before the races, so they do not gain an unfair advantage.
The ‘win’ for Edinburgh Council will be measured by economic impact.
Since staging the Commonwealth Games in 1986, the city has not hosted multi-sports or world sporting events, save for Archery World Cups, the start of the UCI World Championships men’s road race, a slice of Rugby World Cup matches or diving at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and European Championships.
The focus has, instead, been on major cultural events, leaving Glasgow to establish itself as a home for an array of international sports events.
“It’s uniquely different,” says Bush. “We’re doing a live event in a capital city on a Friday afternoon, and no one knows the route until the morning. People only know Edinburgh city centre for The Fringe and festivals. We’re going to put a World Championships bang in the middle of a city.”