In-Kind (Barter) Deals Regularly Used By Olympic Sponsors

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has newly signed the Dow Chemical Company to a 10-year multimillion-dollar global sponsor deal, IOC president Jacques Rogge reported recently.

Dow chief executive Andrew Liveris said his company had been involved with the IOC for 30 years and supplied products for this year’s Vancouver Games but the sponsorship deal would allow them to more clearly associate their products with the Olympics.

Dow is the first new major sponsor to join the IOC’s top sponsorship program in nearly three years, and the 10th overall. The previous nine sponsors were worth a combined $883 million to the IOC. While the committee does not release the financial details, most major companies pay about $100 million in cash and in-kind services to become top sponsors over a four-year period.

The other top sponsors confirmed for the London Olympics are Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos Origin, General Electric, McDonald’s, Omega, Panasonic, Samsung and Visa.

Atos Origin, Panasonic, and Samsung have extended their partnerships until Rio de Janeiro (2014) while Coca-Cola, Visa, and Omega have extended their deals with the IOC until the 2020 Games. The bidding process for 2020 has not begun yet, but the host city will be decided in 2013.