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Olympics

Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent Claims Empty Sponsor Seats Are Not From His Company

Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent said none of the seats the company was given to the London Games for being an IOC TOP sponsor are "are going empty.” Kent said, “We have people that are making sure that we don’t have any empty seats and we have usage of our tickets. That’s the key, usage rate of our tickets” (Fox Business, 7/30). Kent added, “We not only have brought a great number of partners (and) customers, but also we have worked with youth in Britain and given the opportunity for those tickets to be used by people that are termed as ‘future flames,’ ‘young consumers,’ etc, youth from the street games that we also support.” The company has a “very, very high usage of tickets from all the tickets that have been allocated to us as a partner of the Olympic Games.” But he added, “I’m not sure that the empty seats are solely the responsibility of sponsors and partners of the IOC. I think perhaps there may be other reasons that I would not know about.” Meanwhile, Kent said of Coca-Cola’s Olympic sponsorship, “I don’t think about it as a typical sponsorship. This is a long partnership that started in 1928. I couldn’t see a better fusion of our ideals, values and those of the Olympic Games of enthusiasm, of fair play, of excitement, of bringing communities from all around the world together. That’s very much in-line with our own values and our own beliefs and heritage.” Despite the difficulty in quantifying ROI for the company, Kent said Coca-Cola can "count the amount of mentions, of amount of positive basically relationships that are generated with our brands, we can count those" ("Quest Means Business," CNN Int'l, 7/30).

TIME IS ON MY SIDE: CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla noted IOC TOP sponsor Omega is the official timekeeper for the Olympics and the “only sponsor whose name may be visible within a venue.” Omega President & CEO Stephen Urquhart said it is “difficult to give you a dollar figure” on all the visual impressions the company gets from its sponsorship. However he said it is "very important to the brand" that spectators and viewers see the Omega name. Urquhart: "It’s also important all we do around below the line and above the line to explain what timekeeping is all about” (“Squawk on the Street,” CNBC, 7/31).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

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