Setting the pace

FEATURE | AGENCY

Setting the pace As Usain Bolt stands poised to thrill the world again in London and cement his place in Olympic history, his agent and manager Ricky Simms of Pace Sports Management is tasked with building the Jamaican’s brand off the track.

By Michael Long. Photographs by Graham Fudger.

T

he men’s 100 metres final is the highlight of every summer Olympics but with Usain Bolt in town this year’s race is officially among the hottest tickets in sporting history. Such is the draw of the fastest man on the planet that in last spring’s public ballot more than one million people applied for tickets to watch him – more than any of his rivals – run a race that will be over in less than ten seconds. And if Bolt’s customary pre-race statement of intent is anything to go by – “It will be the most awesome show and I’m going there to do great things,” he told the New York Times in May – the 80,000 or so fortunate enough to have secured a seat inside London’s Olympic Stadium on 5th August will not be disappointed.

Such self-confidence has come to define Bolt since he shot to global fame four years ago in Beijing. Three gold medals and three world records in the space of just six days elevated him to the ranks of genuine superstardom but all the more astounding was the manner in which he achieved them. Here was a 21-year-old who had beaten the world’s best – on the biggest stage no less – and done so seemingly at a canter. And while for some his easing up and chest slap before the finish line of the 100 metre final signalled a lack of respect for those left in his wake, the global public couldn’t get enough of him.

Bolt’s marketability soared and the media storm descended. For Ricky Simms, though, the sprinter’s longtime agent at London-based Pace Sports Management, it was not a time to get carried away by the hype.

“Usain had already broken the world record at the end of May [2008] in New York so we expected him to win all those races [in Beijing] – we expected him to run fast,” he says, speaking in June. “But the strategy at that time was he can’t be a one-

“Agencies in athletics are very different from agents in football because we are like the club, if you like, for many athletes.” hit-wonder; he has to come back in ‘09, ‘10, ‘11 and ‘12 and do it all again.”

Almost exactly a year after his Olympic triumphs, Bolt did just that. Outdoing perhaps even his own expectations, he ran even faster at the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Berlin to break two of his world records, a feat which also saw him become the first man to hold Olympic and world titles for both the 100 and 200 metres simultaneously.

Since then, though, things have not all gone Bolt’s way on the track. Defeat to American Tyson Gay in Stockholm in 2010, only the second of his career, was followed by a catastrophic false start at last August’s IAAF World Championships in Daegu. Bolt’s disqualification not only effectively handed his world title to countryman Yohan Blake – a result exacerbated by Blake’s recent victories in Jamaica’s Olympic trials which have heaped unexpected pressure on Bolt and added a further strand of narrative in the build-up to this summer’s showdown – but for many it also served as an indication that his laidback attitude, arguably his most defining trait, had dissipated into complacency.

Yet in spite of such criticism of his manner on the track, Bolt remains a much-desired, world record-holding Olympic champion and the deserved favourite to top the podium again in London. Such status, at least for his offtrack affairs, is everything.

Indeed, television appearances, interviews, documentaries and even races against British royalty have become a fact

of life for the most aptly named athlete on the planet. Requests for his endorsement from major brands have come thick and fast. Forbes ranked Bolt 63rd in its June list of the world’s highest-paid athletes, with a sizeable portion of his reported overall earnings of US$20.3 million in the past 12 months coming from endorsements.

For Simms, then, whose job it is to manage Bolt’s on and off-track business, there is no shortage of work but the challenge has been finding the time to fulfill the myriad opportunities, especially with London 2012 just around the corner.

“He could have had more deals in the last couple of years but it would have detracted from his training and performance,” he says. “But if he can have a very successful Olympics in London and the next few years can continue that as well, then he will be well known for the rest of his life. He’ll be getting deals when he’s 50 years old. I think going forward with him there are definitely markets that we can still work on, like China, India, etc.

However, it involves having a presence there. Track and field is not so well known in those countries so we have to go there and we have to do things there. But finding the time to do that is taking away from his training schedule.”

That said, Simms and his team have still managed to put together a formidable and no doubt demanding portfolio for Bolt that currently includes Visa, Virgin Media, Gatorade, Soul Electronics, Digicel, Hublot, Nissan GTR, Regupol and, of course, Puma. “Because he

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Ricky Simms, pictured at the Pace Sports Management offices in Teddington, London, on Wednesday 20th June

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FEATURE | AGENCY

“Ultimately, we want to help grow athletics, of course, but our priority is with Usain,” says Simms

lives in Jamaica, every time he flies to Europe it takes a week out of his training schedule,” he continues, “so we wanted to get a smaller number of partners and try to keep them to a high level. And longerterm deals, too, so that they [brands] get to know him, they get to know how he works, and we’re really fortunate that the people we work with, without exception, every one has been fantastic. Well, not quite without exception, but you try to work together with them, use him so they get what they want out of him but also so it doesn’t disrupt his plans too much. And it’s just what fits with him, you know.

“Puma are an awesome company to work with because they’re young, they’re fresh, they’re trendy, and these kinds of things, and that fits with Usain’s fun kind of image as well. The advert we did with Virgin Media and Richard Branson was the one we’re probably most proud of because it sums up what the company and what he is about. And then the Visa one was a little bit more serious but they are a great company for him to be associated with. And again, in the States, if you ask who Usain Bolt works with, Gatorade is the one a lot of people spring to mind because they do a lot more in the US with him, Super Bowl ads and stuff. So all these companies fit Usain’s image.”

With such a high level of interest, though, Simms doesn’t always find himself biting the hands off eager suitors.

“I remember after Beijing we were approached by a company that made electric bikes,” he reveals. “Electric bikes are very popular in China but they’re also

very small and I can’t see Usain on one at all. A six-foot-five guy on one of those doesn’t bear thinking about!”

“Definitely the hard part is that you get so many people on a daily basis, you know, someone will ask, ‘Do you want to come and do a documentary?’ or they want to interview him. For any other athlete on our books this is an opportunity to say, ‘Yes absolutely, let’s do it.’ But for him, it’s just prioritising what he can do; to give him the time he needs [to train]. He’s very good at these kinds of things and he enjoys doing them but it’s about finding a balance, which I think we’ve got quite well now. For me, you turn into being the nice guy for the first couple of years and then you feel like you’re the bad guy disappointing people. But you have to try and do it in the nicest way possible and I think if people are going to talk to, say, Tiger Woods or David Beckham, they know they’re not going to just say, ‘Yeah, just come round my house tonight.’ A lot of people are used to it but some people are different. At the moment there’s a big comedian in Japan who wants to come and race him and is offering a lot of money to do a TV show but it’s just one more thing.

He’d love to do it, of course, but maybe with a little more time he can.”

Besides being the global face of this summer’s Games, Bolt is without doubt the standout name in world athletics.

As such, he is vital to the future development of a sport competing with a host of more commercially attractive ones. Simms is fully aware of the responsibility resting on Bolt’s

shoulders but the Irishman believes the fate of athletics will not ultimately be determined by the successes or failures of his star client.

“Usain’s brand is the biggest brand in athletics,” he declares. “I’m not saying he’s too big for the sport but he’s well known, he’s global, so the sport has benefited enormously from Usain’s presence.

Everyone admits that: the IAAF, everyone who meets us. We were in Rome three weeks ago and they’re getting 25,000 extra people in the stadium coming to watch him – the number of media is multiplied by ten or 15 compared to if he’s not at that meet – so he’s absolutely huge for athletics. And athletics for sure has to use that to help in future because he won’t be around forever.

“I know a lot of people are thinking about what can be done,” continues Simms. “We’re definitely involved in a lot of those discussions and, you know, athletics was hurting – it’s not basketball, getting TV time and all these things.

The Diamond League has helped a little bit but there’s still so much that can be done to make it better for TV and the younger generation. It’s happening but it’s happening slowly. Usain has been a godsend for athletics but our job is Usain. Ultimately, we want to help grow athletics, of course, but our priority is with Usain, building his brand and giving him the best we can get.”

Simms is one of three directors at Pace Sports Management, a well-respected athlete management firm that, in addition to Bolt, counts the likes of Britain’s current 5,000 metre world champion Mo Farah and reigning Olympic 400 metre champion Christine Ohuruogu, and a whole host of Kenyan athletes among its 70-strong stable of clients. Speaking at the company’s offices in Teddington on the southern outskirts of London, during something of a respite before jetting off on a hectic period of competitions and Olympic trials prior to returning for the Games, he recalls the story of how he came to be introduced to Bolt.

“It really owes a lot to Puma,” he says, crediting the German sportswear brand that has backed the athlete since day one. “In the late 90s, all our Kenyan long-distance runners had a group deal with Puma because they had a four-year

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programme in Kenya. Some of the greatest ever athletes were running in Puma. That was up until 2000. And then, unlike Nike and Adidas, these companies that can spread over all countries, being a smaller company then Puma focused on fouryear projects, so it started with Kenya and then, from 2000 onwards, they focused on Jamaica, the country’s federation. They picked up a lot of young athletes, were giving them products, and we worked with a few other Jamaican sprinters.

“When Usain appeared on the scene as a 15-year-old in 2002, his natural route would have been to go to university in America but he didn’t really fancy that.

He was going to turn professional and he was looking for an agent and he took recommendations from different people.

We were already recognised as being one of the top athlete management companies.

We had a very good client base already so we were given an introduction through Puma in 2003 and I guess we got on quite well. I don’t know, I’ve never asked Usain how many people he talked to. He didn’t really interview us. He probably came into our office in London, or we had an office in Boston at that time, and the other Jamaican athletes spoke well of us. You see, athletics is a smaller sport. The successful agents in athletics live the sport, they are passionate about it. It isn’t a part-time kind of life, you have to be on it 24/7.”

Indeed, as a former middle-distance runner himself, Simms’ passion for athletics shines through as he describes his current occupation. Alongside his role as representative for some of the world’s best athletes, he currently coaches, among others, 2012 Laureus Sportswoman of the Year Vivian Cheruiyot and writes the training programme for elite Kenyan runners based at Pace Sports Management’s training facility in the east African country. The role of his company, too, is far more than just to represent athletes commercially.

“Agencies in athletics are very different from agents in football because we are like the club, if you like, for many athletes,” he explains. “My work for a lot of athletes is more like a football manager because of what we do on the performance side of things. We have over 70 clients. In athletics you earn money from competing in races, from appearance fees, from prize

Ricky Simms and Pace Sports Management were introduced to Usain Bolt through Puma in 2003

money, and usually athletes have a shoe company sponsor – Nike, Adidas, Puma, etc. Probably 50 of our athletes don’t have sponsors outside of that. That’s how they earn their money. But we’ve got around 20 guys who have deals.

“The main job you do is training the athletes, getting them into the competitions, negotiating fees for them in those competitions. That’s a big part of the performance element of our job as opposed to football agents doing deals and signing contracts. So at the top end we have the marketing side of our business and we do contracts and retail things as well. And in recent years, particularly with Usain Bolt and Mo Farah and these kinds of athletes, we’ve had a lot more of that type of work where as six or seven years ago we were almost exclusively performance.”

In that regard, the signing of such a rare talent as Bolt has had a dramatic impact for both Simms and his company.

“In 2005/06, we had other star athletes so Usain was just another athlete with a lot of talent,” recalls Simms. “But then in ‘06, ‘07 and ’08, when he joined coach [Glen] Mills, we started to see him making progress. Of course, in 2008 after what happened [in Beijing], I went from being a guy who’s known as an agent in track and field to people constantly asking, ‘How do you get to Usain? How do you do interviews with him?’ So he put our company a lot higher – we already were high in athletics but you guys wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Usain Bolt. He’s opened many, many doors for our

company. It’s been a great journey for us, really, coming from a coaching and performance focus with athletes into a more marketing role in a very short time.”

Bolt’s popularity – and therefore marketability – is unquestionable.

Besides almost seven million Facebook likes, market research agency Nielsen recently found that he has been the subject of 0.62 per cent of global online Olympics discussions – more than the 0.52 per cent centered on local icon David Beckham. But what of the other athletes on Simms’s roster, especially the British home favourites, whose buildup to London 2012 must have been far removed from ordinary preparations ahead of a major event?

“Six years ago, there wasn’t so much going on commercially for the British athletes,” says Simms. “You didn’t see them on sports drinks bottles and cereal packets. But definitely in the last four years brands in the UK have wanted to be associated with the top British talent. So there have been so many more opportunities for our athletes. I wonder what will happen after 2012 but I think some of our clients have been in a very fortunate position, like Phillips Idowu, for example, who has had a lot of deals since the [Beijing] Olympics. But then there’s Christine Ohuruogu, who was a big star of the 2008 Olympics from a British point of view. She was injured in 09/10 so she missed it a little bit. So you had to be on top at the right time and definitely some guys have done well out of the Olympics.”

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