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By : Juliet D. Golden
Ski-jump phenomenon Adam Malysz, center, receives first place on the podium at Harrahov, Czech Republic. Since rising to national fame, Malysz has attracted the sponership of a number of companies.
A hero's welcome will undoubtedly be in store for Adam Malysz, who this week makes his way back to Poland crowned as the reigning world ski-jump champion.
But the Poland Malysz is returning to has changed in the four months since the start of this season's World Cup series.
Coming from a nation with a mediocre reputation for successes in winter sports, Malysz's winning streak this year has taken on the mythical aura of a Horatio Alger story. At the start of the season in November, Malysz was ranked 28th in overall World Cup standings and wasn't even tabbed by the sport's aficionados as a favorite, let alone a long shot as the world's best in the last season prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics.
But Malysz, a 23-year-old roofer from Wisla, overcame the odds to become Poland's first-ever World Cup ski-jump champion. With 11 wins this year, Malysz not only unseated double world champion Martin Schmitt of Germany, but has now become the hope of a nation for a gold medal in next year's Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
But Malysz's Cinderella-like tale provided more than just victory. He created a golden moment for Poles weary after more than 10 years of economic transformation. Against a backdrop of nurses' strikes, farmers' protests, soaring unemployment, wobbly reforms and bitter political battles in the countdown to this year's parliamentary elections, Malysz's unlikely success has not only been a welcome diversion, it has also provided a healing salve for the nation's bruised identity.
"Because there is uncertainty around the European Union, there is uncertainty around the social situation (and because) there is uncertainty around the way in which Poland is going to be positioned, somebody like Malysz proves something," said Neil Selby, chief executive officer of D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles advertising agency. "The fact that despite the odds, somebody like Malysz could succeed, can fly further than anybody else and can do so with a humility and with naturalness in a way in which everybody can identify, it is very important at the moment."
Malysz-o-mania has even become the mainstay of Poland's domestic and international political scene. Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek made his way to Lahti, Finland, last month to see Malysz jump. Malysz's successes were also used by the European Commission's Romano Prodi to make his spin to the Poles during an official visit two weeks ago.
"Poland is like Malysz," Prodi was reported as saying in the Polish press. "For a jump that lasts a few seconds, you prepare for many years."
Sponsers unfurled their banners and brought out the pro players for a volleyball match near Warsaw's plac Zamkowy.
Apart from the impact on the nation's psyche and politics, the craze has Poles tallying what short- and long-term impact the Malysz phenomenon will have on sports and the sports business in Poland. On the one hand, some officials are predicting a renaissance in sports, which until now have been unable to completely rebound after the economic crisis of the 1980s and the budget cuts of the 1990s.
But the Malysz story is also one of enormous commercial success. Since January, would-be sponsors and advertisers have been vying to gain rights to a piece of the athlete to peddle their goods. Malysz billboards dot the urban and rural landscapes of the country, TV ratings have soared, and an Adam Malysz cottage industry has emerged over the last few months.
With companies entering the fray, many hope that Malysz has unleashed a new cooperative era between business and sports.
"This is a good opportunity for the sports business to develop," said Janusz Szydlowski, sales director at Poznan-based sports marketing agency Atktis Media. "I hope that what's happening now with the so-called Malyszomania will lead to interest in sports as an advertising medium."
But in a country where gold-medal Olympians can't find a single sponsor and most superstar wannabes have to panhandle to fund basic training needs, the jury is still out on the long-term impact of Malysz on the sports business.
"It would be difficult on the basis of the euphoria related to Malysz and Malyszomania to predict what will happen in the future," said Pawel Kwiatkowski, public affairs manager at Kompania Piwowarska, a brewery deeply involved in sports sponsorship. "I don't suddenly believe companies are going to start looking for opportunities to sponsor in other sports."
Diamond in the rough
The impact of this magic winter sports season is no more apparent than at the ski jumping school in Wisla, Malysz's hometown. Enrollment there since December has swelled to more than 100 kids hoping to follow in their hero's championship flight path. In an average year, the school boasts a maximum of 30 students, according to Jacenty Kowerski, general secretary of the National Ski Federation (PZN). The same increases are reported at schools in Zakopane to the east and Karpacz in the West.
"(Malysz) has done for ski jumping in Poland what Tiger Woods did for golf worldwide," said Joseph O'Connor, marketing director of American Restaurants (AmRest), operator of Pizza Hut and KFC in Poland and the Czech Republic.
While before this ski season Malysz had scored occasional wins, three in the World Cup series, not even the most die-hard fans, or even his caretakers, predicted the scale of this year's success.
"This is unreal, sometimes I wonder whether it's all just a dream," said Kowerski, analyzing the Malysz success and its impact on winter sports in Poland.
Sponsors who backed the little-known Malysz were also caught off guard.
"You can't imagine a success like this year," said Carlo Loos, who handles sports sponsorship at Loos, a family-owned business that produces industrial boilers and large central-heating systems. The company, whose international headquarters are in Germany, started sponsoring the Polish ski-jump team four years ago.
The winning streak meant the equivalent of a lottery win for Loos and other early sponsors such as Red Bull or Poczta Polska, both of which signed on with Malysz individually or with the PZN late last year before his first victory.
The intense coverage of the ski-jump competitions on Polish prime-time TV meant that Malysz sponsors got their money's worth. From December last year, TVP1 broadcast all ski-jump competitions, the majority of which aired live, even during the wee morning hours. TV ratings went through the ceiling. When Malysz jumped in thick fog two weeks ago in Oslo, nearly 7.5 million Poles watched the competition live on TVP1, which accounts for half the viewers who watched the tube that Sunday afternoon, according to AGB Polska, a market research company.
Poczta Polska wouldn't say how much it forked out to have its logo on Malysz's left sleeve, but company officials said they are confident the post office got a good return on their investment.
According to research agency Expert Monitor, Poczta Polska would have had to pay zl. 1.4 million ($350,000) during January and February to receive the prime-time television exposure it picked up during the ski-jump transmissions.
"We hit the bull's-eye," said Marek Switalski, spokesman for Poczta Polska.
Malysz, superstar
The past four months were enough to transform Malysz into a superhero for Poles of all ages. He has also become the most sought after and most expensive Polish athlete certainly since the fall of communism and probably of all time. The sport's daily Przeglad Sportowy sets Malysz's commercial value at DM 2 million.
Seeing Malysz's potential, other companies in the last few months have been scrambling to join the fray. One of the lucky ones is mobile phone operator PTK Centertel (Idea), which used Malysz to promote its Optima subscription package. The company is tight-lipped over how much it paid to get the jumper as the central figure in its TV and billboard campaign, but officials there voice no regrets.
Nor should they. People on the street seem to identify as much with the sports sponsors and advertisers as they do with Malysz himself.
"My kids are true Malyszomaniacs," said Katarzyna Rembelska, a 24-year-old elementary school teacher who lives near Warsaw. "We had to watch all the jumps on TV and all the time they point out when someone has a mobile phone like Malysz."
Poland's ski-jumping federation is hoping that Malysz opened the door to new wealth through sponsorship deals that will help fund winter sports. Until now the federation's main lifeline was tied to state coffers. According to Kowerski, the zl. 5.1 million ($1.27 million) received last year from the state covered 90% of expenses. The rest came from private sponsors.
PZN's president, Pawel Wlodarczyk, now hopes that new sponsorship deals will allow winter sports to rely less on politicians and more on the private sector.
"That would allow us to better prepare for the Olympics and secure training for the second group of junior jumpers," Wlodarczyk said.
The PZN mainly earns sponsorship funds by selling the 300 square centimeters available on the ski-jump team uniforms, presently taken up by Loos and Poczta Polska. While the latter say their deals are more or less binding through at least the end of next year's Olympic Games, PZN officials say they are pushing to reopen negotiations and will even consider finding new sponsors. This stance may risk fomenting bitterness between the PZN and Loos, which funded Malysz and the other Polish jumpers at a crucial moment when the PZN barely had enough to keep the team afloat.
"You could look at the issue in moral terms because when no one was there, Loos helped out and now when everything is there, we want something different," Wlodarczyk said. "Our opinion is that the conditions under which the agreement was signed have diametrically changed. Understanding that situation, we want to negotiate."
Loos is certain a compromise will be reached.
"This is a partnership; we did a lot for them in the past, we will do the same with the success," Loos said. "The federation knows what we have done for them in the last four years so they will do something for us now."
Surrounded by advertising, a player for Pekaes Pruszkow makes a shot against Amway Benetton. Once fans rooted for teams known by cities, now it's by their sponsers.
Dark Clouds
Sponsors like Loos have served as much of an inspiration to the business community here as the ski jumper himself.
"I take my hat off to Red Bull and also to Loos because they were the original sponsors when he wasn't winning," said Selby from D'Arcy. "There is a huge value to that because it really shows people who go out of their way to back sports."
But most people in sports and business doubt that the Malysz success story will dramatically change how much marketing money the private sector will throw into sport sponsorship deals in the future.
First of all, there is a dearth of highly talented athletes in Poland and even the best haven't found backers yet. "Kamila Skolimowska won the gold medal in the hammer throw competition in Sydney and so what?" said Agnieszka Guzy, manager of Mateusz Kusznierewicz, gold medal winner in the Finn sailing class competition in Atlanta. "Nothing. She can't even find a single sponsor."
In addition, the risk involved with finding unpolished gems will probably keep some companies from funding unknowns in a big way in the future. Aktis Media, which clinched the Malysz deal for Poczta Polska, flopped when it counted on big wins from Marcin Urbas during last year's Summer Olympics. Injuries kept the athlete from performing as expected in the games.
"It's a risk that you bring on yourself in this business," Szydlowski said. "But you also have to have a little luck."
Polish lawmakers aren't making things any easier either for companies or the athletes themselves. Poland's breweries spend zl. 100 million ($25 million) annually on sports sponsorship, a huge surplus to the zl. 150 million ($37.5 million) allocated in Poland's budget, Kwiatkowski said. The breweries' contributions could halt this year if new harsh regulations on beer advertising passed by the Sejm two weeks ago enter the law books.
"In our opinion, (sponsorship in sports) won't be allowed under the law," Kwiatkowski said. "Under the draft law we can sponsor sports, but we can't inform anybody that we do so. Sponsorship won't present any value for us."
