If you look at the rights situation - what media companies pay - then you see that the rights prices continue to rise for powerful sports. Now what does that tell you? It tells you that the demand amongst global and local sponsors for these kinds of sports is immense, even if there is controversy attached to them like FIFA - who would definitely be number one on that list, though F1 has also been somewhat controversial.
Martin SorrellBernie [Ecclestone] has not been shy to say one or two controversial things. The last person in the UK who described his product as being crap in public was one Gerald Ratner - and he was gone immediately. But not Bernie! What it tells you is that the demand for live sporting rights, the demand for global or regional events, is so powerful that you brush aside some things because there aren't so many of these events.
Martin SorrellIn an era of transparency, you can have innovation without branding, but you cannot have branding without innovation.
Martin SorrellWhen you have two people challenge for the same job and you keep them both and call them co-CEOs, or the whole fiasco of a 'merger of equals'... there is no such a thing. So if there should be dreams of dual leadership, the chances of success are limited. But Bernie [Ecclestone] is still at the top of his game I have noticed.
Martin Sorrell