London 2012 has already sold around one million tickets for the Games, unheard of in the history of the competition that began in Stoke Mandeville in 1948 (pictured below) when German neurologist Sir Ludwig Guttman organised sporting events for World War Two veterans rehabilitating from spinal cord injuries at the local hospital.

The Paralympics this year will see the event return to its spiritual birthplace and Deighton says it is at a more commercially advanced stage than ever before.

"If you look at our Games versus past Games, the biggest improvement we've made would have to be ticket sales," Deighton (pictured top) exclusively told insideworldparasport.

"Selling that number of tickets [around one million] that early for the Paralympic Games is totally unprecedented.

"We were always confident because the Paralympic Games is a phenomenal event featuring quite simply brilliant sport.

"The United Kingdom [UK] is the spiritual home of the Paralympic Movement, and with superb medal prospects for ParalympicsGB we believed that the British public would come out in big numbers to watch."

He added: "We created a fair pricing structure and a creative ticketing strategy to encourage people to come along to create a fantastic atmosphere at our venues.

"But we were obviously delighted when we saw the sales figures and the team deserves a lot of credit for that."


The London 2012 chief executive also said that the Paralympic Movement is at a new level in terms of the ability to sell broadcast rights for the Games.

London 2012 announced last month a record-breaking collection of Rights Holding Broadcasters to screen the Paralympic Games across the globe with an unprecedented £10 million ($15.8 million/€12.4 million) in revenue set to be generated.

It represents a further boost for the Paralympic Movement after it was revealed that this year's Paralympics will receive its highest level of exposure in the UK through Channel 4, the host broadcaster, and in China through the country's largest national broadcasting network CCTV.

"Beyond how the commercial value of this package has raised the bar financially for the Paralympic Movement, the fantastic broadcast coverage we have agreed will help us take advantage of this opportunity to inspire disabled people of all ages to take up sport and be a catalyst for continued change in public attitudes towards disability," Deighton said.

"There is a huge opportunity here for the Paralympic Movement in terms of establishing value for those television rights which can create a sustainable economic model.

"We hope that it is the beginning of a big step forward there."

To read the full interview with Paul Deighton, click here.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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