Sport Business News reports that Michael Payne, the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) director of global broadcast and media, is leaving his IOC position after the Athens Games. Reports say that he is joining Formula 1 as a special advisor.
It seems that Payne was known to have been less than happy at the restructuring of the IOC’s marketing operation which he has been involved with for the past 21 years.
His appointment as international broadcast director in 2003 removed him from direct responsibility from a marketing operation he helped to conceive, which reportedly was widely seen as, at best, a sideways move.
Payne’s last high profile negotiation was the $800 million deal with the EBU for the media rights to the 2010 and 2012 Summer Games, which ended last week.
