Who is footing the London 2012 sponsorship bill? Thanks to the London 2012 site, we know who the sponsors are – but what we haven’t had so far is what the individual deals are worth. This is, says London 2012, “confidential commercial information”. So, we’ve been forced to put it together ourselves. Based on our reporting, this is how it comes out:
With thanks to Andy Cotgreave It’s not straightforward, of course. There are several different types of sponsors. Firstly, there’s the worldwide sponsors – these are the 11 big companies such as Coca Cola, who sponsor the games to the tune of around $100m through the International Olympic Committee. They include Dow’s controversial sponsorship of the wrap that will surround the stadium. Also, some of the IOC worldwide numbers include more than one game. Then there are the London 2012 ‘tier one’ partners, such as Adidas, BT and BMW, who each pay around £40m – there are seven of these. That’s followed by another seven “supporters” who pay £20m and then 28 “suppliers” who pay around £10m Meanwhile, we report today that some of the sponsors are coming under pressure over their tax breaks: Visa is coming under increasing pressure to publicly waive tax breaks handed to major Olympic sponsors after two of the biggest backers of the Games promised to pay the UK Exchequer. McDonald’s and Coca Cola both said yesterday that they would decline relief handed to the 11 “worldwide” sponsors of the Games, meaning that the profits made from selling burgers and fizzy drinks to spectators in the Olympic park will now be taxed The row over Olympic taxes comes against a backdrop of the bill for London 2012 being funded by around £1bn of sponsorship, which includes £700m raised locally by the organising committee and a further £700m contribution from sponsorship and broadcast revenues from the IOC. Interestingly, it might not even be that effective for most of the sponsors. Brand Republic reported recently that many people have no idea who’s sponsoring the Olympics – for instance, 16% of those surveyed think Tesco’s is a sponsor, which it’s not. Similarly, Canon, Carlsberg, Sky and mobile phone company Orange were all erroneously cited as sponsors. Have we got the numbers right? Let us know what you think – and what you can do with the data.
