Agenda’s approach hasn’t changed much since. Sport has an inherent power to inspire, and that can lead to other revenue-generating opportunities for athletes that come to Agenda looking for help with landing or managing sponsorship deals and contracts. That’s why part of the agency’s business today involves little more than stories alone, told by athletes themselves. For clients looking to reinvigorate their organizations, the company offers a roster of speakers that includes some the biggest names on the Canadian Olympic team.
“Some of the athletes get very good at telling their stories and looking at the parallels between sport and business,” says Young. “A lot of the same habits can serve you well on both sides.” After all, what could be more motivating than gold medal gymnast Kyle Shewfelt sharing the story of how he beat the odds by returning to competition after breaking both legs following the Athens Games? Or wrestling champion Carol Huynh on what it meant to win Canada’s first medal in the Beijing games that seemed determined to keep the nation off the winners’ podium? “Then there’s the whole philanthropic side, where you know you’ve done something to help a young Canadian athlete,” Young adds. The price of a talk from either athlete: $7,500.
With the Olympic Games less than a year away, the idea to open another office this past February to manage and market athletes in Vancouver “wasn’t about assessing the risk as much as taking advantage of the opportunity,” says Reimer. “The question was, Can we afford not to?”
But going forward, after the closing ceremonies, that question will inevitably be, What next? “There are a lot of people who look at the Games as a big windfall,” says Reimer. For Agenda, they’re an entry point. Once they’re over, the firm will be striving for the same kind of diversification as it has achieved in Alberta, where it has bolstered its athlete management operations with sports tourism, helping to bring major sporting events like the two stops the Canadian Golf Tour will make in Alberta this season, the Telus Open in Edmonton and the ATB Financial Classic in Calgary. As for the shape growth will take on the West Coast, Young and Reimer are willing to leave that up to the staff.
“The one thing we’ve always said to the people who work for us is that the company is going to grow in the direction of your interests and your passions,” says Reimer. “There is no reason why the same things we promote as why we started this company shouldn’t apply to the people who work for us.”
“You have to be passionate about what you do,” says Young. “You have to be passionate to be authentic. When we’re talking to sponsors or to sports people, if we don’t know their world, we’re poseurs, which is the last thing we want to be. So if we go in the direction where our people are passionate, it can only help us.”
That said, Young knows he, Reimer and the rest of Agenda’s staff can’t get too picky about what opportunities they’ll pursue. Especially in trying to grow through the downturn, “If business comes along, you have to take a serious look at it,” says Young.
But in the meantime, he adds, dropping a hint about his own motivating passion, “The Olympics go on.” Even with the Vancouver Games yet to come and go, the next stop for Agenda’s Olympic dream, London, England, is just three summers away.
Next Up is a series of profiles of emerging leaders in Alberta’s business community and public life.
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