Four of the top Olympic sponsors are set to axe their financial support after the Beijing Games close today.


The failure of these global companies – including Kodak, which has backed the Olympics since they were revived in 1896 – to extend their sponsorship is a serious blow for London as it seeks finance for 2012.

Manulife, the Canadian financial services company, is among those ending its sponsorship, along with the Chinese computer group Lenovo. Johnson & Johnson is also expected to announce shortly that it is cutting its Olympic spending.

The International Olympic Committee has 12 "worldwide partners" in different businesses and most continue from one set of Games to the next.

These top sponsors pay up to £50m each, with organisers of London's 2012 Games receiving a large part of that money. London is also separately recruiting national sponsors, including Lloyds TSB, BT, and British Airways. It had hoped to secure all its sponsors before the Beijing Games close today, but is only about halfway to its £650m target. Some marketing experts say it is asking too much, especially with a recession looming.

Lesa Ukman, chairman of IEG, a US sponsorship consultancy in the WPP group, said: "London is looking at numbers that are impossible to justify. The price of the Games is going through the roof, based not on the value potential that is extractable but on the committee's ideas of what can be charged – which has nothing to do with what you can get as a return. It is absurd."

London 2012's website last week boasted support from all 12 worldwide partners backing Beijing, but four companies' logos were later hastily removed.

Kodak has been a top sponsor since 1986 but its support dates from the first modern Games. It boasts: "Virtually every great moment in Olympic history has been recorded on Kodak film."

However, an executive said yesterday: "Our transformation to a digital company has transformed our business model from a company that was largely focused on sales directly to consumers to one heavily weighted to business-to-business." Kodak is taking on other sponsorships, such as the PGA golf tour.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business...out-906774.html

Don't worry, by that time Asian corporations will sponsor the London Olympics. Like how Korean Investment Bankers are bailing out Lehman Brothers right now.

they have 4 years to prepare. plenty of time

London is taking quite some pressure from the Beijing Olympic.

Hard act to follow because of the money spent. Even if the economy comes back the UK would not choose to match Beijing.

Any UK government committing 40 billion dollars on an olympics would be committing political suicide (the Chinese government did not have that problem since it is less answerable to its people).

In the UK some people are questioning whether the Olympics is worth it at even 20 billion dollars never mind 40.

um they aren't. that was a pump and dump scheme

people aren't sponsoring the 2012 olympics because there's no money to be made in a large advertising budget in 3-4 years. credit bubble will burst.

It's interesting how they showed black and East Indian people in London's presentation ceremony for 2012 Olympics. They are ignoring a smaller but noticeable Hong Kong/Chinese community in England. I hope the Chinese community there don't give them any loans for their upcoming Olympics.

I am sure London can come up with something similar to the Beijing Olympics because the Brits will sucker the Government of China to provide free labours and materials to build their Olympic Stadiums. From what I noticed, China is always willing to play the role of a sucker at the expense of the average Chinese people.

Olympics is a global event. Since this year they hold it in China and Chinese are overrepresented in the ceremonies, of course, the British had to pick other people on their presentations. I heard some people just came back from England said Chinese are everywhere in London. It looks almost like a Chinatown. Don’t know if this is truth or not. Maybe they are exaggerating.

Here we go again. Sweat over small stuffs and make the problems appear bigger than it is necessary.

Let's do business with the British. There is no need to be like that.

Ya and cheap labour, or people willing to work for below minimum wage cash money.

What has this got to do with chinese chat?

Why do we even care? This has nothing to do with Chinese. This is their problem. Let them deal with it.

What does this have to do with China?

Yeah move the topic.

Most are likely tourists and foreign students. I think big cities in America and Canada have much more Chinese presence though.

It does because I am sure London will come to China asking for the Chinese Government to supply free labours.

And how will China respond ?

China : "Ok sir, we have unlimited supply of labours".

lol ok sir, we have umlimited supply of labours

hahaha i just couldnt stop laughing when you said that

You mean black and South Asian (over half of them are not Indian) people. Besides the HK/Chinese community, other East/Southeast Asian communities are also growing in London, especially the Filipino community. They should have at least included one or two East/Southeast Asian people in the ceremony.


I assume they probably only meant Central London rather than the whole of London? Chinese are not everywhere in London as a whole, but you will find them nearly everywhere in Central London.