Golf and rugby sevens are eying the pot of gold at the end of the Olympic rainbow, hoping the International Olympic Committee will admit them to the Games Friday.
The two candidate sports could return after more than 80 years, with the Olympic status guaranteeing them a solid future and millions of dollars in improved TV deals, sponsorship and state funding.
The IOC session, meeting in the Danish capital, will put each of them to a separate vote, with a simple majority enough to see them included in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
"It will give both sports a shot in the arm," Giles Morgan, HSBC Group Head of Sponsorship, told Reuters Tuesday.
The IOC wants to renew its sports program to attract a younger generation as it revises its broadcasting plans to include new digital media.
Both sports are guaranteed expansion with funding from the IOC, increased broadcast rights deals and in some countries, automatic national funding as an Olympic sport if they are voted in.
"So you will see more interest, more television, and then more sponsors because sponsors follow where the people go," Morgan said. HSBC is a major sponsor of both sports.
Morgan estimated rugby sevens's potential Olympic entry could easily help double its current sponsorship money of about $15-20 million.
"And that is a conservative estimate," he said.
Golf, eying a return for the first time since 1904, and rugby, which last featured in 1924, were shortlisted by the IOC's executive board in August. They now need the session's approval.
The other five, squash, softball, baseball, roller sports
and karate, failed to make the cut.
"Golf and rugby have their fan base and they are ready to go, and the sponsors will be a catalyst for growth," Morgan said.
Rugby sevens, with only seven players per team instead of 15 and short 15-minute matches, was well received, needing two rounds of voting to clear the executive board 14-member election.
Golf, seen by some as too elitist and with only a limited appeal among younger audiences, had to battle it out for four rounds with karate.
IOC President Jacques Rogge has brushed aside golf's age concerns, saying several younger players were coming up the ranks, increasing its appeal among younger people.
(Source: Reuters)
