Padraig Harrington will head to the office today but will leave his briefcase at home. Instead, he will stand on the first tee at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club with a clump of trees and a picturesque man-made lake to his right. Ahead of him will be a vast expanse of lush fairway, and in the distance a manicured green. As he pulls out his driver for the 405-yard (370 metres) hole, Harrington will get down to business in his challenge for the US$2 million (Dh7.34m) Abu Dhabi Championship.
If money makes the world of finance go around, it positively sends sport into a spin. During the past two weeks, these masters of the universe have travelled to the UAE in search of paydays that most people can only calculate in their sleep. Harrington, the British Open and US PGA champion, is just the latest. "Sport and global television are a powerful combination to showcase a fantastic destination such as Abu Dhabi," said Greg Sproule, the managing director of IMG Middle East, the sports marketing company.
Using sport to help market and brand a country is nothing new. The most successful example was the Beijing Olympics last summer. A total television audience of more than 24 billion, according to the ratings agency, Nielsen, followed the individual dramas in the quest for gold medals. "It's interesting because I think Beijing was one of the early ones," said Mark Warne, the Dubai-based strategy director at MEC Access, a division of the media company, Mediaedge:cia. "Certainly Asia has been the leader as an emerging region where sport can make a big impact. For example, the World Cup in 2002 was held in [South] Korea and Japan, and that generated an enormous amount of interest and revenue in the region."
On a smaller scale, the World Tennis Championships in Abu Dhabi earlier this month was beamed into an estimated 420 million homes. On court, the eventual winner, Andy Murray, walked away with $250,000 after beating the world's number one, Rafael Nadal, in the final. But then, to lure the best players on the circuit, the organisers reportedly paid six-figure fees and housed the kings of topspin in the luxurious Emirates Palace. "I have never stayed anywhere like it," Murray said after his success.
Priceless publicity and worth every dirham, as images of Murray punching the air in a victory salute were shown on news bulletins across the globe. "We saw with that event, if you bring the biggest names to the region, that's going to [stimulate] great interest," Mr Warne said. "Big events are the real touch-points of excitement for people in the region. It gives them instant credibility." To keep the UAE in the spotlight, the David Beckham bandwagon rolled into Dubai last week, and pictures of the Gulf's financial capital were flashed around the world. The most famous face in football was in town with the all-star AC Milan team to take part in the Dubai Challenge along with Bayern Munich, Hamburg and the local club Al Jazira.
Naturally, the cameras whirred every time Becks flexed his pecs on the training ground or was surrounded by young wide-eyed fans in search of an autograph. To complete the publicity coup, his wife and former Spice Girl, Victoria Beckham, gave her own seal of approval. "I can't remember the last time I had a holiday where I could just walk around without any make-up on, with a pair of flip-flops, with my kids, and just do regular stuff," she told The National. "Everyone's been very respectful. I will come back for that reason."
AC Milan, probably with the former Fifa World Player of the Year, Ronaldinho, in tow, are also likely to return. The chic Italian club was rumoured to have been paid $3m for the trip. But since images of Beckham were blazed across screens from Abu Dhabi to Accrington, it was money well spent. "The presence of Beckham did take it to another level," Mr Warne said of the UAE's sporting progress. With a chain of state-of-the-art venues in the pipeline, the country is racing to become a major player in hosting global sporting events. Later in the year, the projected $1.36 billion Formula One circuit will be unveiled on Yas Island for the inaugural Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Ferrari, with a $500m development budget, will be on the grid, and so will the world champion, Lewis Hamilton, who has a five-year $112m contract with McLaren, its arch rival.
To illustrate the pull of Formula One, television audience figures are rising as fast as it takes Hamilton to go through the gears of his 900-horsepower McLaren. Last year, the sport attracted 600 million viewers for the first time. This year, that figure is expected to climb and Abu Dhabi's profile will rise with it. "Events such as this have helped position Abu Dhabi and the UAE as a global destination, and given it a global platform and a target audience to show the rest of the world what a wonderful place it is," said Peter Baumgartner, the executive vice president of marketing and product at Etihad Airways.
Horse power of the equine kind will also be on display at the Dubai World Cup in March. With $6m pencilled in for the winner, this will be the richest horse race in the world. Since it was launched in 1996, the brainchild of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the event has helped to highlight the city's affluent image. Last year, Curlin romped to a seven-length victory at the scenic Nad Al Sheba Racecourse and was later ranked the best in the world alongside New Approach. Vital statistics. Yet as a commercial exercise, this annual horse opera is simply priceless.
"It showed that we can host large-scale international events here," Mr Warne said. "It's positioned as the most lucrative horse race, in the same way that Dubai is positioned as the biggest and tallest of everything. From that event, the Government has clearly realised that sport is a massive platform. It's one that we can do very well here. There's no reason that we shouldn't be out there hosting more global events."
The World Club Championship in December comes into that category. When the Fifa football festival takes place at the end of the year, the champions of each continent will head to the UAE, hotly pursued by the media circus and thousands of fans. Hardly surprising then that marketing eyes from the East will turn to the West to see if one of Europe's big three, Manchester United, Real Madrid, or Inter Milan, will book their ticket to the blue-chip party by winning the Champions League.
"I think when [the Club World Cup] comes to Abu Dhabi next year, there's going to be a greater focus on it [than there was in Japan last year]," Mr Warne said. "It's not going to be this massive great jaunt out to the Far East." A month before, the Club World Cup, the multimillion-dollar European golf tour, or the Race For Dubai will come to a conclusion. In between, there will be the Desert Classic in Dubai, which was won by Tiger Woods last year, and, of course, this weekend's Abu Dhabi Championship.
For Harrington, standing on the first tee, it will be just another day at the office. For the marketing movers and shakers, it will be a rare day to get out of theirs. * additional reporting by Keach Hagey gwatts@thenational.ae
