Sport is also intellectual property
When it comes to the World Cup, the numbers speak for themselves: a joint study by FIFA and the World Trade Organization (WTO) projects a global gross output of $80.1 billion and a contribution to global GDP of $40.9 billion, as well as the creation of 824,000 full-time jobs. Beyond the numbers, however, even more telling is the ripple effect that a single event triggers globally: brands of all kinds working flat out to produce World Cup merchandise, broadcast rights, digital platforms monetising every click, hotels operating at full capacity, airlines increasing routes and frequencies, supermarkets selling screens and drinks in unprecedented volumes. Even on the fringes of the formal economy, street vendors and pirate merchandise sellers find in the World Cup an extraordinary income opportunity. The World Cup not only mobilises multi-million dollar capital, but simultaneously activates multiple layers of the global economy.
Copyright is no stranger to this tournament. The theme of the World Cup always creates great expectation. Since 1966, when FIFA decided to reinforce its marketing strategy, an official theme song for the event was introduced. Although that year's World Cup Willie passed without much fanfare, several other attempts followed and by 1998, with Ricky Martin's Copa de la Vida, the World Cup song had become a global phenomenon.
Continue reading the opinion column by our IP expert partner Monserrat Soto for Delfino.cr here.