Who says the Russians aren’t fast learners? Certainly not me. For a country which spent 80 years in a command economy, the Russians have quickly become among the world’s smartest capitalists. Check-out this article from the International Herald Tribune titled Olympic Movement Seeks Russian Sponsors.
Apparently, “… Gerhard Heiberg, head of the marketing committee for the International Olympic Committee said he would be visiting Russia to investigate possible global sponsors for the movement — and he mentioned state-controlled OAO Gazprom, Russia’s natural gas giant.” (Note: Thanks for pointing out that Gazprom is “state-controlled.” Love when the Western press is snippety. As if that makes Gazprom somehow sinister.)
Some of the more cynical amongst us might might suggest that some untoward quid pro quo is taking place. Whatever. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. The Olympics are big business and the Russians now understand this as well as anyone else. Why shouldn’t the executives at Gazprom do everything in their power to promote Russia’s quest of hosting the 2014 Olympics. If that means that the executives hinted to the IOC that they might look more favorably on sponsorship should Sochi be named the host city, then bravo boys, nicely done! Every little bit helps.
The folks at the IOC certainly understand how the “game” is played. For example, the IOC recently agreed to shift the start times for a number of the super high profile sports to begin very early in the morning local time in Beijing so viewers back in America could watch them in prime time. Why would the IOC do such a thing? Simple. “NBC paid $3.5 billion to televise the five Olympics from 2000 through 2008. That’s more than double than what is contributed by the next biggest rights holders, in Europe, and a compelling reason for the IOC to go along with a few of NBC’s requests.” As USA Today wrote, “That $3.5 billion the International Olympic Committee gets from NBC will buy a lot of alarm clocks.” See full article here. Big business indeed.
Here’s an article from Brandweek asking whether Olympic sponsorship is really worth the $50 million paid by each of the 12 sponsors for the Athens Olympics.
And in case you thought that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen that often, check out this article from the IHT detailing BHP Billiton, the Chinese mining and resources giant’s sponsorship of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Here are the 12 “Worldwide Olympic Partners.” See below:
Speaking of big business, check-out this article from The Moscow Times titled, Big Win Translates into Big Money
