Relay Worldwide Chairman and CEO Wally Hayward opened today’s Sports Sponsorship Symposium and attempted to ease concerns about the status of the sports industry, given continued turmoil in the economy.

“We continue to see growth in a lot of our sectors,” he said, “whether you’re in the agency side, the brand side or on the media side. We are certainly faring better than a lot of the industries out there, including Wall Street and what’s happening in the financial marketplace. We certainly do appear recession proof and recession resistant.”