“YOG is not about medals, it’s about the education and culture.” — An interview with Teo Ser Luck (Part 5)

By Les Tan, Dawn Yip and Jan Lin

Teo Ser Luck is the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Transport.

Before joining politics, he was in the private sector and his last position was as General Manager of DHL Express Singapore.

An Ironman triathlete, Ser Luck, who turns 41 on June 8th, has championed the role of sports, especially for the masses.

When the topic seizes him, Ser Luck also writes an occasional column for Red Sports.

Red Sports caught up with him for an exclusive interview.

Part 5

So for the YOG, what are some of the key success factors? How will you measure the success of the event? What are some of the ways you are looking at in determining success? Attendance?
To me, the most important thing is whether there will be an impact and a legacy left behind in Singapore. That's why we bid for it in first place. Will we be able to mobilize the young people? Will we be able to actually create this sports culture in Singapore? That's the most important (success) through the Youth Olympics.

Secondly, it’s of course for Singapore. Will we be able to organise an outstanding Games to enhance the brand and image of Singapore internationally, and put Singapore on the world map, and the world sporting map as well? We are right now on the world map for economics but what about sports? Can this Games help us? And then we will be really seen as the regional hub for sports.

I think with YOG, more or less, we have already brought ourselves into the same league, if not higher league, than the other cities that have organised the Asian Games. I think of course, the key is hopefully we would be able to use YOG as a platform. I don't want to go into economics for now, because to me, YOG will definitely promote economic benefits.

It’s about using YOG as a platform to allow some of our administrators to take some leadership (positions) in sports administration internationally, whether is it IOC or international federations. I think it’s important.

It’s like our membership in UN or whatever international organisations out there for economic cooperation. For sports, international federations. We have a few, but can we use this platform and have more, so that Singapore internationally can be recognised both in the administration in events and of course, generally sports as a whole.

I didn't mention sports performance because we are talking about YOG. To me, YOG is not about medals, its about the education and culture. So to me, it’s to be able to make an impact for our country, for the region, leave the legacy there. We've never seen an Olympics so closely. First time. Helping to shape it is more important because the YOG, it’s the first time for IOC.

When I went there for the bid, the vision was changed, the mindset was change because the summer Olympic Games since 1896 has progressed so much. YOG is a totally different animal, and they want us to shape it differently, be very creative, because its not about a medal tally anymore.

Is the IOC going to tally it differently?
They have suggested different ways, we have to come up with the concept. And we believe in that direction as well. We have to scale down on that one, but people will still be watching, but we will need to scale it down. So we will need to work with the press, and we need to work with the media, and we need to format the Games in a different way.

So IOC has given you the license to experiment with that kind of format?
They have given us a certain level of autonomy to do that, we will need to figure out how to do it. So that was why they believe in giving small cities a chance because small cities will, instead of talking about medals all the time, they will be talking about how can this Games help us, lift us to the next level.

So will IOC market the YOG like the summer one?
We will be marketing it. That's the plan. The five rings will sell by itself, the businesses will come. Everybody wants a piece of it.

I was reading through the bid document and I noticed that you committed to keeping the price of tickets at S$10 maximum. I was very surprised to see that you can actually commit ahead of time to the cap.

I'm not sure if the price will still change, but our objective was to make it as affordable as possible. It's about for the masses, for the heartlanders because the events are held at the heartlands…all the heartland stadiums and venues, so you can't make it too expensive. And we are not looking at the ticketing to recover all the cost.

If you really want to talk about economics, you will be looking at the businesses, the sponsorships, to recover the cost and to give us a higher economic budget. But when you calculate, you know its going to go higher, higher than 75 million, higher than a 100 million…from businesses. The five rings is very powerful.

So are you seeing very enthusiastic responses from Singapore companies?
Ya. We are a bit slow. They want to sign on the dotted line immediately. We are a bit slow in coming up with the packaging and marketing plans. We want to make it affordable, we want to make it relevant and make it effective for them to promote their brand. So right now, we are still building up our teams. This is such a big organisation, there are so many people involved, so it takes a while. Then I think we should all be signing contracts already.

There are so many people, so many companies that are approaching us and I remember during bidding time, it was 600 over companies. Right now, we are not short of companies, its a matter of which of the companies are relevant for this movement. So the question is do we want to be selective or we just take anybody.

I would also want to use YOG to promote our local companies, especially the SMEs. I always see a great opportunity between Red Sports as a new media space and YOG because you are already covering that.

Do the summer Games' sponsors have to start from scratch, everybody equal?
The tops, we call them the top Olympic partners, they have the first right. Of course, because they have to pay quite a sum to be an Olympic sponsor.

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