No wonder they're NOT signing up for those $80 million sponsorships

[baron-pierreIV]

Delta is a USOPC sponsor.  Now, they've come out with the $100 million LOSSES they expect to incur come Paris 2024.  

Delta says the Olympics will cost it $100 million as travelers skip Paris (msn.com) 

Why would anyone want to advertise a LOSING proposition??  

I'm glad I don't own a company that the IOC can make a FOOL of if I signed up with them!  And then, of course, on the FOP, you can't show your branding and name.  LA28 is NOT signing up the suck . . . err. sponsors by the minute.  Hmmmm, I wonder why??  

[Sir Rols]

Not many sponsors would be making much money, if any at all, out of the games themselves - Samsung might hope to sell a few more than usual big 77-inch OLEDs over the next month, but that’s about all the direct benefits to any of them. It’s the exposure and the benefits they hope to reap over the next four years (in Delta’s case, all those millions who see pretty images of Paris at home in August and decide they must finally fly over and see it in person now - poor Parisians!).

And what makes the games so special and exclusive marketing-wise is that it is so overtly advertising free. C’mon, do we really want to replace those “Look” signages in the stadiums with hoardings for Budweiser, Coke, McDonalds, Visa and Toyota?

It’s not sales on the ground they’re after, it’s bombarding the commercial breaks in the TV coverage with their ads - and using the five rings in those ads - that they want. And to blank out the competition. Like the poster here who was so outraged on behalf of Anhueser-Busch that Qatar WC 2022 enforced alcohol-free stadiums. As if Anheuser-Busch were counting on getting their money back through the local stadium beer tents! They would have actually been happy the ban gave their sponsorship more media exposure, that the FIFA logo was on their cans and bottles - and not on Heineken’s and Asahi’s.

 

 

Edited July 13, 2024 by Sir Rols

[Sir Rols]

Actually, isn’t Delta a USOC sponsor, rather than an IOC TOP sponsor? I don’t think there even is an airline TOP sponsor - they’re usually domestic deals.

[baron-pierreIV]

Yeah, as I noted.  Delta is a USOPC sponsor.  And that's a big hit for them -- or any airline for that matter.  (Plus the over 750+ athletes, NBC people, etc. flying on Official business to Paris are, I am sure, given a special rate (that barely gives Delta a 8% profit.)   

But come this next quadrennium, like McDonald's I don't think is signing up anymore.  All those increased minimum-wages for fast-food workers has lost them sales and franchises.  And if them, being the biggest in their field, I don't see how Burger King -- maybe Subway-- but still even a $75 million LA28 sponsorship PLUS  you have to give around at least $10 million (or so) in kind, if I were on Subway's Board, I would vote NAY.  The only other giants I see possibly opportune for LA28 would be amazon, disney or apple -- but so far, none seem to have signed up.  (The IOC has Visa, Coke, P&G, of the US multinationals -- and relevant to a thing like the Olympic Games -- locked in as TOP sponsors.  There's 1 more I can't recall at the moment.)  

Edited July 13, 2024 by baron-pierreIV

[sebastien1214]

Sponsorship in major events mainly serves to improve the brand image, or at least to present itself as a "premium" / "prestige" brand. It's rarely about making immediate financial profits*. We can see several scenarios:

- “Brandwashing”. Coca-Cola for example. This is a good example, because today they are using their partnership with the Olympic Games in particular to seek to appropriate the positive values carried by sport. Coca-Cola being very criticized, like any ultra-famous brand, it is much more a question here of improving their brand image rather than making money (this is in any case the discourse carried in France by the brand)
- Upgrade to a higher status. I will take the case of Lidl which sponsors Euro 2024 because it seems interesting to me. Obviously, the Euro is in Germany, Lidl is a German brand, from this point of view it is logical. But I also see another idea: it's been 5-10 years now (at least in France) that Lidl has been trying to get rid of its image as a low-end supermarket, and this can notably involve attaching its brand to major events.

Besides, it's the same thing with television channels. In France, it was TF1 which had the rights to broadcast the World Cup, except that it was never a financially profitable investment for them. However, they continued for decades until 2022 to buy the TV rights, because in brand image it allows TF1 to be sold as "THE television channel, the place where the big events take place, the channel of reference".

However, there are indeed sponsorships whose primary interest is to make money. And this may indeed be the case for airlines.

*(except perhaps in the country of unbridled capitalism that is the United States)

[Nacre]

17 hours ago, baron-pierreIV said:

Yeah, as I noted.  Delta is a USOPC sponsor.  And that's a big hit for them -- or any airline for that matter.  (Plus the over 750+ athletes, NBC people, etc. flying on Official business to Paris are, I am sure, given a special rate (that barely gives Delta a 8% profit.)   

It's important to note that the "displacement effect" hits all major events. The Super Bowl and World Cup also scare away people from the host city if they aren't going to the events themselves. The problem is that the Summer Games happen during the high season for tourism so the displacement effect has a massively negative net effect. I think that Sydney and Rio are the only Olympic host cities to actually gain any tourists in the last four decades - because they are southern hemisphere cities.

[Sir Rols]

I was trying to find a general sponsorship thread. This will have to do.

Anyway, seems it’s out with the Japanese, in with the Chinese…

IOC, TCL seal lengthy partnership