While terms of Eastman Kodak Co.'s eight-year renewal
of its TOP IOC partnership were not disclosed, Mike Gorrell
of the SALT LAKE TRIBUNE reports that the IOC "expects to
raise" $600M from 10 or 11 TOP sponsors for the 2002 and
2004 Games in deals "believed to be worth" $55M on
"average." At that level, SLOC's 17% share as Games host
"would be about" $9.35M and has "already been included
within calculations" of the revenue raised for the Games.
Kodak's SLOC sponsorship "will mainly be in cash," but it
will also have "a sizable operation" in the main media
center, developing film and providing digital-imaging
technology support for photojournalists (SALT LAKE TRIBUNE,
3/17). AD AGE reported that Kodak "will set up what it
calls the world's largest" photo lab in Salt Lake City to
support the 1,000-plus photojournalists on site during the
Games (AD AGE, 3/16). SLOC President & CEO Mitt Romney, on
the deal: "Every time a premier corporation signs as a TOP
sponsor, it makes our job with other new first-time sponsors
that much easier. If TOP sponsors weren't signing, it would
make our life very difficult" (DESERET NEWS, 3/16).
NEW DEALS ON THE HORIZON? In Boston, Gregg Krupa
reports that sponsors continue to back the Games despite
last year's bid scandal: "In the end, the Olympics simply
proved too attractive as a marketing platform for major
corporations to resist." On Tuesday, John Hancock Mutual
Life Insurance President & CEO David D'Alesandro "directed
Hancock employees to restore" the Olympic rings to company
stationery. Meanwhile, sources said that negotiations "are
nearly complete with some" of the five current TOP sponsors
whose agreements expire this year, including McDonald's,
UPS, Panasonic, Samsung and Xerox. But a UPS spokesperson
told Krupa yesterday that UPS' negotiations with the IOC
"had not begun" (BOSTON GLOBE, 3/17).
