JOÃO LAGOS President of João Lagos Sports

In addition to premium events such as the Estoril Open, the Open de Portugal and the Vuelta a Portugal, João Lagos, President of João Lagos Sports, has promoted hundreds of other competitions in a wide variety of sports amounting to more than 30 weeks of competitions every year. In January, the company organized Le Grande Départ for the Lisbon-Dakar rally, as it did last year and intends to do so again in 2008. With the rally starting in Lisbon and then passing through Portimão en route to North Africa, João Lagos Sports was able to fully demonstrate its management and coordination skills with an event of such proportion and responsibility. It was an extremely successful experience due to the wide coverage it offered: over 600 hours of worldwide television were broadcast, along with thousands of articles and reports with positive references to Lisbon and Portugal. The company’s organization of the Lisbon-Dakar rally has been commended for its quality and innovation, as well as the effect it has had on the many thousands of amateurs associated with the sport. Furthermore, the direct economic impact it had on Lisbon and in the Algarve exceeded all expectations.

Your company generates hundreds of entertainment hours for a substantial number of people every year. What is your recipe for success and how do you view your contribution to the Portuguese economy in terms of sports tourism?

We are known for selecting important sporting events and achieving significant returns and a wide prominence in the media. All the events have met certain conditions, such as being part of an international circuit; the Estoril Open, for example, is part of the ATP Tour. We also get involved in other professional and regular events in tennis (WTA), golf (PGA European Tour), cycling (UCI) and powerboats (Class One World Championship), amongst others. These attract large audiences and enjoy widespread media coverage. This leads to high-yield returns for the sponsors, and projects Portugal on an international scale, significantly impacting on the economy.

What would be considered your most memorable achievement?

One I am particularly proud of is when Portugal won the tender to host the 2000 Tennis Masters Cup in Lisbon. This competition involved 40 other cities, including Milan, New York, Rio de Janeiro and Barcelona. We kept on coming up with the right arguments until we ultimately won the tender to host the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament, involving the highest prize money of the year and the eight leading players.

What would you say are Portugal’s main comparative advantages?

Firstly, it is important to mention that we have completely new, state-of-the-art venues as a result of Expo 98. Secondly, Portugal’s strategic location on the Atlantic Ocean is extremely favorable for us. Its third advantage lies in its location, weather conditions and the fact that it is an historical and modern city at the same time.

You have been quoted as saying that “entertainment is the industry of the future”.

Certainly. I have played sports my whole life, and always done it first and foremost just for the fun of it. Above all, sport has to be fun. Every event must have a component of pleasure, whether it is entertainment or fun. Without a rush of emotions there is no experience, no diversion, no fun… therefore no success.

As you will be diversifying your activities by being more active in cultural events, please elaborate on some of your major projects at hand.

We have created a company called “Lagos Ventures” that deals exclusively with projects regarding culture, society and citizenship. Culture has to be primarily entertainment-orientated for us. This is the only way for us to ensure the attraction of a large audience necessary to support projects of this nature. This will in turn ensure successful returns for both our private and institutional investors. We have also supported and launched the International Year of Deserts & Desertification (2006) campaign, which is considered a worldwide concern, especially by the UN.

Promoting large-scale events with worldwide coverage has seen João Lagos Sports attract global attention to the nation, with diversification into more cultural and humanistic projects ahead.

How does culture represent a form of economic investment?

Portugal is a very ancient country, with many culturally and monumentally interesting assets that we can promote. Culture will be a very profitable investment in the future. Its growth will be difficult to measure since it does not permit such immediate returns as, for example, a football match.

What would you say João Lagos Sports’ core competences are?

Thirty years in the business justify our successes. We permanently try to identify events that have the potential to allure, and do so before anyone else. In fact, we structured a set of organizational, logistics and communication skills that we can apply to any component in any area, as long as it has potential and meets the conditions that I mentioned above.

How do you generally finance your activities and expansion plans?

Our projects are wholly financed by our activities, which provide the means for us to go further. We have not made our capital available to other parties yet and at the moment, this is not in our plans.