Johnson & Johnson Will Not Renew IOC TOP Partnership
Less than three years after announcing that it would become a worldwide Olympic partner, IOC TOP sponsor Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has "decided not to extend its sponsorship through 2012," according to Tripp Mickle of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. J&J Exec Dir of Corporate Communications Lorie Gawreluk said in an e-mail, "We are not renewing that sponsorship to enable us to focus on other business priorities." Sources said that despite its decision not to return as an IOC partner, J&J "may remain affiliated with the Olympics" by sponsoring the USOC, other national organizing committees and possibly the 2010 Vancouver Games. The decision to discontinue the TOP sponsorship was "made over the last three weeks in part because of the economy and the expiration of key patents that J&J faces in the coming years." The departure of J&J "leaves the IOC without a sponsor that would have delivered approximately" $100M in its renewal over four years and "helped the organization achieve its goal" of $1B for The Olympic Partnership program running from 2009-12. Sources said that J&J paid for its '06-08 TOP and '08 Beijing Olympic sponsorships "out of its corporate budget, with the estimated outlay pegged" at more than $73M, because China was such a "crucial market for the company." But this time J&J "wanted its brands to contribute to the cost of the sponsorship from their individual marketing budgets." The sponsorship division was "able to pull that funding together but failed to get corporate approval because of economic pressure facing the pharmaceutical industry, which is expected to see revenue drop" by as much as $10B next year. J&J is the fourth partner to discontinue its IOC TOP partnership since last year. The others from the '05-08 quadrennial are Kodak, ManuLife and Lenovo. The IOC was able to replace Lenovo with Acer, but it "returned ManuLife's insurance category rights back to the 200 national organizing committees and added Kodak's digital camera category rights to Panasonic's sponsorship." Mickle notes J&J "will be difficult, if not impossible, to replace" as the official health care products partner (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 11/17 issue).
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