The Business of Writing - Lundquist College of Business - University ...

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James h . WarsaW sPorts m arketI ng Center
PrEParINg for thE day aftEr
The collaboration between the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center and Fudan University
is advancing the understanding of sports business in China before and after the
upcoming Olympic Games.
What do you do with a multimillion
dollar arena built solely for the Olympic
Games once they are over? That’s the
issue that plagued Bin Jin, who is charged
with finding revenue-generating uses
for a sports venue after the 2008 Beijing
Olympics. To address that problem,
he enrolled in the executive education
program created by the Warsaw Sports
Marketing Center and Fudan University
to move knowledge of sports marketing
in China forward.
“There is so much focus and attention
on what will essentially be a seventeenday
event,” explained Warsaw Center
Managing Director Paul Swangard.
“But the upside of the Olympics from
The Warsaw Sports Marketing Center maintains strong ties to the sports industry in China
through a partnership with Fudan University and annual study tours with students in Beijing.
a business perspective is what happens
the day after the Games are over.”
To help Jin and thirty-four others prepare
for the day after the 2008 Olympics,
Swangard traveled with Instructor of
Sports Business and Senior Industry
Analyst Steve Miller to China in
November 2007 to teach a seminar as
part of the evolving partnership between
Fudan University in Shanghai and the
Warsaw Center. The workshop focused
on how to leverage sponsorships and
link brands to sports activities in China.
“Basically we were introducing a mature
marketing concept in a country still
trying to understand what ‘marketing’ is,”
explained Swangard.
The seminar was a component of an
executive education degree program in
sports marketing launched by Fudan
University in collaboration with the
Warsaw Center in 2005. It also represents
the next step in the evolution of the
Warsaw-Fudan partnership, as well
as the Warsaw Center’s long-standing
commitment to the Asian market.
As Swangard explained, “When the
partnership started we taught professors at
Fudan University what sports marketing
is and how to teach it. This involved
collaborations and exchanges in which we
brought Fudan professors to Eugene and
vice versa. Now, we are on to phase two
in which we are jointly educating.”