Sponsors Mark 500-Day Countdown To Beijing Olympics

By Tripp Mickle, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

With the Beijing Olympics 500 days away, domestic and international Olympic sponsors marked the milestone with a series of announcements today. Bank of America, the official bank of the ’08 U.S. Olympic team, named China Lounge as the site for its Hometown Hopefuls Family Center, a hospitality site for U.S. Olympians and their families. Located next to Workers’ Stadium, the site of the opening and closing ceremonies, China Lounge will feature complimentary lunch and dinner, wide-screen TVs with coverage of events, Internet access and other amenities.

COMPUTER GAMES: TOP sponsor Lenovo announced that it will begin airing a series of eight commercials tonight on China Central Television that highlight the company’s sponsorship of the Olympics. The commercials will air each of the next 500 nights on primetime evening news before a segment reminding viewers how many days remain until the start of the Games. The computer company also said it completed a shipment of nearly 700 pieces of hardware, including notebooks, desktops and servers to BOCOG. More than 30 Lenovo employees are setting up the equipment so it can be used in trial events this July. By the time the Games begin, Lenovo will have delivered more than 14,000 pieces of computing equipment to BOCOG for the Games.