Lexington, KY - Alltech, the title sponsor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games opening at the Kentucky Horse Park on Sept. 25, has invested an estimated $32 million in the event, a figure that is likely to increase now that the Nicholasville-based animal nutrition company has taken the extraordinary step of providing additional staff to the World Games Foundation, the event's organizing body.
Some 50 Alltech employees with expertise in such key fields as cash flow management, marketing and communications have been moved to the Foundation's offices on Iron Works Pike to work side-by-side with the organization's over-taxed staff in the frenzy of final-stage preparations. Many had long ago been assigned by the company to focus on the prestigious international event, operating in something of a parallel universe.
Business Lexington
Following the decision, spoke with Alltech founder and president, and World Games Foundation board member, Pearse Lyons, and Foundation chairman John Long, who also serves as chief executive officer of the United States Equestrian Federation.
Their observations and comments follow, organized by name and topic.
Dr. Pearse Lyons
What inspired your decision to provide staff to the World Games Foundation?
"What inspired this is that they are running at such a pace they can't keep up. They're short-staffed. They've got 30 or 40 people, I've got 2,500 people. I have people in logistics - they need people in logistics. I have help that I can give them on computers, on PR.
Was your assistance requested?
"It came from the Foundation, specifically from John Long with the full blessing of Jamie (Link, World Games CEO), and endorsed by the Governor."
Some might view this move as something of a takeover of the organization of the Games. Would that be an accurate assessment?
"I don't wish to be the chairman or the CEO. But it is a fact that we have been putting together an awful lot of the initiatives behind the scenes and sometimes not quite behind the scenes. What this is all about is, it's my passion for the event; my passion for Kentucky. I have to make sure that there is no reason that this isn't an astounding success.
If I can be personal about it, when I see my wife (Deirdre, Director of Corporate Image and Design) working on the Alltech Village 7-nights a week, 7-days a week - and she loves every minute of it - we have to make this a success. We're very, very excited."
To your knowledge, has the title sponsor of a major international sporting event ever been so thoroughly engaged in the organization and operations of the event itself?
"It is absolutely unprecedented. Nobody has ever done this."
Why are you making such a commitment?
"The answer is really quite simple. When I stepped up and said that we would be the title sponsor, I said also at the time that I was going to bring to it all of our assets and my passion to make this thing work.
It's not that I owe a debt to the state of Kentucky, because I don't. But you know, my people are Kentuckians for the most part and they want this thing to work and they are so proud of it. But, as a business thing, it has done incredible things for our company."
We've had coverage unlike any coverage for any previous Games around the world.
$32 million is what we've calculated that we will have spent. I would challenge anybody to get the mileage out of $32 million that we've gotten. It's been extraordinary. On the other hand, when you put that against a budget to run a Games like this - $70-million - to have a title sponsor put time and energy and $32 million in is amazing.
But we're doing very well and I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
John Long
Why did you request that Alltech provide staffing support in the final weeks leading up to the Games?
"Dr. Lyons has put together a fabulous team of Alltech employees who have been working on the World Equestrian Games for over two years now and the group has gotten sizable. So what we had was two parallel organizations kind of coordinating, kind of working side by side, but kind of not. And by melding the two groups it is has added brains and arms and legs to the Foundation staff where we just didn't have enough people in there doing it.
This new regime already has made it better. We're communicating literally hour by hour. With three weeks out, it's the right thing to do and it's working perfectly."
Why were staffs not integrated earlier?
"If we were to have integrated the teams any earlier we wouldn't have had the critical mass to make things happen. What's happened simultaneously - and this was the sign that we were looking for - was that ticket sales would really begin to take off. That's happened over the last four to five weeks. We are now selling three times and on some days even four times the daily ticket sales that we were selling as little as six weeks ago.
We thought that this bump would happen after the New Year, and it didn't happen. Then we thought, well maybe the 'go button' will get pushed for people after the Rolex Kentucky Three Day event, and it didn't happen. And it's really happened over about the last month. Ticket sales have now really gone through the roof, and we have a couple of sold-out competitions now.
With this new activity, this frenzy of ticket sales, it made all the sense in the world to bundle the two organizations."
Has the sluggish economy been an important factor in the delay in ticket purchasing?
"I think that's exactly what has happened. It is consistent with the conversations that I've had with the Olympic organizing committee in Vancouver, and it is identical to the same conversations that we had with football's World Cup in South Africa - that ticket sales lagged, everybody thought something was going to happen, everybody started to get nervous and then four to six weeks out, 'Katy bar the doors.' They had just waited until the last minute. What we're experiencing is consistent with what has been experienced by these other two big championships that have been held over this year."
Do you have any concerns about ending up with a deficit?
"I think it's looking good. I am really encouraged at the level of ticket sales. They are quadrupled from where we were just six weeks ago.
We're going to be in fine, fine shape financially.
The competition is going to be the best that it's ever been. We've done a little hair-cutting budget-wise, but the quality of the competitions - the footing, the jumps, the course design, the officials that have been selected - have been sacrosanct. We have not made any compromises in the way that this competition will work. And I think when national federations fly back home with their athletes, everyone will say that they were, without a doubt, the best World Equestrian Games they've ever been to."