Forget Stocks, Hughes Says Athletes are Better Investment
With the economy in a downturn, speedskater Clara Hughes says there’s no better time for Canadian companies to invest in Olympic athletes.
Hughes has several companies backing her bid to add to her medal collection, but seeing teammate Kristina Groves, a double silver medallist at the 2006 Games, with none prompted Hughes to hold a news conference yesterday urging corporations to invest money in Canada’s athletes as they prepare for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
Her pitch was Olympic athletes are cheap labour.
“When you look at the millions and billions of dollars put into advertising budgets, the bang for your buck you can get for an athlete, especially right now with so much exposure in Canada, I think it’s very little money for what you get in return,” Hughes said.
“It might be a good alternative for big-budget marketing schemes who use only professional athletes. A lot of professional athletes are used in advertisements. They’re being paid millions of dollars for those, and when you look at turning that into thousands, that’s a big jump down and a frugal way to use advertising dollars.”
Canadian Olympic Committee chief executive officer Chris Rudge was unaware Hughes was planning to make a plea to corporate Canada.
“There’s probably no finer person than Clara in the sport world. She’s a conscientious individual and cares an awful lot about athletes,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s untoward to say ‘hey, these kids are deserving of sponsorship relationships and it could be rewarding for a corporation and we’d like to see more people do it.”’
