Patrick Nally - West Nally

West Nally

Having been introduced to the journalist, BBC presenter and sports commentator Peter West in 1969, Nally founded the West Nally Group the following year as a public relations agency with a specialized sporting events mandate. With West as chairman, and managing director Nally its driving force, the company would go on to redefine the sports business industry by pioneering the offering to ‘blue chip’ companies of exclusive, off-the-shelf packages of sponsorship rights to the world’s largest sports tournaments on behalf of the world’s leading sports federations. Early successes included securing investment to establish the Masters in snooker, the Squash World Open, and an annual one-day cricket competition which would run for three decades in the UK. In 1976, on brokering an agreement to sponsor the FIFA World Cup, the company assured its reputation as a leading innovator within the expanding sports marketing field. Employing over 400 staff in 14 offices across 11 countries in its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s, West Nally has served as partner to, among others, the International Olympic Committee, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), the Davis Cup and Federation Cup in tennis, the Hockey World Cup, the International Swimming Federation (FINA), the International Rowing Federation (FISA), the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the FIS World Ski Cup. The company helped secure the financial foundations of the first London Marathon, held in 1981, before playing an instrumental role in the inception of the International Association of Athletics Federations‘ Track and Field Program and in initiating the IAAF World Athletics Championships, first held in Helsinki in 1983. For the International Rugby Board (IRB), West Nally helped to commercially package and launch the Rugby World Cup, first held in 1987 in Australia and New Zealand. Known within the industry as the ‘university of sports marketing’ on account of its comprehensive training procedures responsible for cultivating a generation of leading sports business executives, the company’s founder Patrick Nally was in 1988 described by Marketing magazine, along with Adidas owner Horst Dassler and IMG founder Mark McCormack, as one of the “three godfathers of sport” who at one time, between them, “controlled the commercial destinies of almost every major sports event in the world”. Credited with first perceiving and harnessing sport’s unique potential as a medium for global brand communication, Nally is today alternatively hailed as “the ‘Founding Father’ of sports marketing”, “the father of modern sports marketing”, “the founding father of the sports business industry”, “the godfather of sports sponsorship” and the ‘Dean’ of the ‘Sports Marketing University’. In 2009, his pioneer status within the industry was recognized with a nomination in the ‘Outstanding Contribution’ category at SportBusiness Magazine’s annual Sports Event Management Awards.