McDonald’s Prohibited From Helping Chicago In Olympic Bid

While “few companies could benefit more from Chicago hosting the 2016 Olympics” than McDonald’s, which makes its HQs near Chicago, as a TOP sponsor the company is prohibited by the IOC from supporting any individual city’s efforts to attract the Games, according to Janet Adamy of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner said, “We have to treat this as an arm’s-length relationship.” A McDonald’s spokesperson said that the company “hasn’t contributed any money to Chicago’s bid effort.” But Adamy notes “several people with close ties to McDonald’s are among a circle of influential Chicagoans working to win the bid,” and Olympic officials indicated that “those things don’t break any rules.” McDonald’s Chair Andrew McKenna is co-Chair of fundraising for the bid committee, and bid officials said that because McKenna is “one of Chicago’s most influential civic and athletic powerbrokers,” he “shouldn’t be viewed as an ambassador” for McDonald’s. Atlanta-based Coca-Cola was in a similar situation when Atlanta bid for the ’96 Olympics (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 5/11).