Salesforce is out as a sponsor of the LA28 Games, ending an agreement signed with the organizing committee less than three years ago.
With Salesforce’s departure, LA28 is left with two top-tier sponsors: Delta and Comcast.
Salesforce, the customer relationship software company, had agreed to a seven-year deal with Team USA, LA28 and NBCUniversal in June 2021. It had planned to use its Salesforce Customer 360 platform to help the organizing committee develop digital experiences for fans and athletes, and it had planned to work with NBCUniversal to build fan communities.
LA28 and Salesforce confirmed in a statement that they, along with Team USA, “amicably decided” to part ways. It noted that Salesforce will continue its partnership with NBCUniversal on Olympic media.
Financial terms of ending the contract early were not disclosed, but the departure of a top-tier sponsor leaves LA28 with a bigger challenge in trying to hit its $2.5 billion revenue target for domestic sponsorships.
LA28 has a joint venture with NBCUniversal to combine media and sponsorship sales, and the reported price tag for top-tier sponsors is $200 million each to LA28 and NBCUniversal.
WHAT'S NEXT: With the partnership lasting less than three years, Salesforce’s move leaves LA28 with a significant hole that it thought it had filled. But it opens the customer relationship management category to bring on another sponsor.
The decision comes as LA28 sales have been slower than expected, with fewer top-tier domestic sponsors than many recent organizing committees had acquired at this point in the cycle. No sponsors have signed on for top-tier deals since Salesforce did in 2021.
Chairperson Casey Wasserman previously said LA28 has $4.8 billion of contracted revenue out of the organizing committee’s current $6.9 billion budget. In January, he said three or four announcements would be expected in the coming months.
Salesforce’s deal with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Properties, which is the joint venture between LA28 and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, kicked off a massive buy-in to the Olympic movement for the company.
A month later, in July 2021, it signed on to sponsor Team GB and the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB). It signed eight of the nine winter sports national governing bodies to short-term deals in the months leading up to the Beijing Games. In 2022, it became a sponsor for the Paris Games and in May it added the Milan-Cortina Games.
Salesforce confirmed it will continue to sponsor those Games -- with the Paris Olympics starting in just more than three months and the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina coming in less than two years -- and the British and German teams.
The signs of Salesforce departure have emerged over the past few weeks. An online shop with Salesforce and Team USA-branded merchandise has had items at a heavy discount or, last week, had all listings removed.
On Monday, a fitted Denali jacket was the only item in the store and available at a deep discount. The zip-up jacket is regularly priced at $76.95, but it was on sale for $23.08.
At the Team USA media summit, display screens listed everyone from top sponsors, who support the Games at the global level, to LA28’s licensees.
Salesforce was not on that list.
Salesforce is not among the sponsors for LA28.
