2012 London Olympic Games - Case Study Example

How the pricing strategies for Paul Williamson vary by sport As the Head of Ticketing for the London Olympics, Paul Williamson was expected to set prices for events tickets and through this task, he was to ensure that the 2012 London Olympics maximize on its revenue potential and it ends up a profitable undertaking for the city of London. Despite the pressure to maximize on the revenue potential, Williamson was expected to set the prices to a level that will guarantee that all the events will be fully packed with spectators (Gourville and Bertini, 1).

With approximately 7.9 million tickets up for sale, Williamson relied on six broad categories for his pricing strategies. Among these broad categories that were considered is the sporting events that will be in and around London, the global appeal of individual sports, local appeal of a particular sport that is influenced by UK’s past success on the sport, and event stages where awards will be issued. In addition, influential teams or athletes that have a lot of influence also impacted on the pricing for particular events they were participating in and lastly, the pricing strategies for past Olympics was also considered during the pricing for London Olympics (Gourville and Bertini, 8).

Based on the experience that Williamson had on pricing for events, he knew that it would be easy to sell highly priced tickets during the opening ceremony, finals for particular events, and during the closing ceremony. However, the biggest headache was selling tickets for ‘not-so-popular events’ such as handball, archery, and table tennis, especially during the preliminary rounds. Besides this fact, Williamson was also faced with the challenge of setting prices for individual sports (Gourville and Bertini, 1).

However, it is important to note that the severity of the challenge varied with nature of the sport, for example, it was not challenging task to set the prices for swimming events as compared to handball events. For the most popular events, which comprised of swimming, artistic gymnastics, and athletics, the prices of the tickets during the preliminary rounds was expected to remain at a high level during the entire period but they were expected to be at their peak (highest price) during the finals and award ceremony of the sport.

Additionally, ticket prices for individual sports also varied depending on the seating arrangement i.e. seats that were close to the playing field were highly priced than seats at the far back end of the playing field. Sports that had influential personalities who were widely known across the World and in particular, London warranted for high-ticket prices. For example, a swimming event that Michael Phelps was participating in warranted for high-ticket prices same as a relay run that Usain Bolt was participating in.

For the ‘not-so-popular’ sports such as handball, table tennis, and archery, the tickets were to be set at the lowest levels during the entire period. This strategy was aimed at attracting as many people as possible to these events and to enable those who could not afford the other highly priced tickets to have a ‘feel’ of watching live an Olympic event. Work CitedGourville, John. and Bertini, Marco. The London 2012 Olympic Games. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2011 Internet Source