On 29 July 1948, the day of the Opening Ceremony of the London 1948 Olympic Games, the first competition for wheelchair athletes, which was named the Stoke Mandeville Games, involved 16 injured servicemen and women who took part in archery. Fast forward from its humble beginnings, and the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics in Japan featured 4403 athletes from 161 countries. Ryan Neiswender was one of those athletes, winning a gold medal in wheelchair basketball, for the USA, and he joins the show to discuss paralympic and disabled sports sponsorship. Ryan is a Visa sponsored athlete as Visa’s connections to the Olympic and Paralympic Games extend beyond simply their sponsorship of the Games. Visa understands that the skills that make Olympians and Paralympians successful in sport extend to the workforce as well. As such, a number of elite athletes have taken the opportunity to join their global team where they are investing in their careers. Ryan is one of those elite athletes and is a Digital Partnerships, Senior Manager at Visa. As such, this chat is really insightful as Ryan can speak from both sides of the fence – rights holder and sponsor. There are 1.3 billion people in the world who are living with a disability and those 1.3 billion people have a combined disposable income of US$13 trillion. While the world is largely focussing on digital, Web3, crypto, and blockchain, as new sectors and opportunities to develop in sponsorship, maybe there’s been an opportunity right under our noses the whole time. Enjoy.

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