Menu
Marketing and Sponsorship

Visa Extends Longtime Partnership With IOC Through '32 Games

It is not known what price Visa paid to continue its relationship with the IOCHILARY KNIGHT

Longtime IOC sponsor Visa has extended its rights through ‘32 in a long-term deal that lends new stability to a major component of the organization’s portfolio. Visa's current deal was due to expire after the ’20 Tokyo Games. Visa has held the credit cards/payment technology category since ‘86, and famously used its Olympics rights to rapidly gain market share from competitors early on. In more recent years, it has used the Games to promote non-traditional payment technologies like contactless cards and wearable devices. Visa had been one of seven global IOC partners whose current deals expire in ‘20 that had not extended following the PyeongChang Games, which IOC officials called an unprecedented opportunity to reform its portfolio. The six remaining are Procter & Gamble, Dow, Atos, GE, Coca-Cola and Samsung. As part of the deal, Visa gets the rights to 206 national Olympic committees including the U.S., as well as rights to the six Games following Tokyo. The deal also includes global rights to the Paralympics, the first time the separate properties have been bundled together under a new IOC-IPC collaboration agreement. Visa joins Omega as the only global sponsor to renew through ‘32. NBC’s broadcast rights also run through that year.

PASS THROUGH WILL CONTINUE: Neither Visa nor the IOC responded to messages seeking elaboration on today’s announcement, but a source said Visa will continue to be allowed to pass through its Olympic marketing rights to client banks. That detail has added extraordinary value to Visa, though it is a point of frustration for national Olympic committees and their retail banking partners. Citi in ’16 ended its USOC sponsorship in part because it believed its domestic rights in banking were undermined by Visa’s extensive use of those pass-through rights. For instance, Chase ran a VIP cardholder lounge with Visa at the ’12 London Games and U.S. Bank did a rewards points promotion with its FlexPerks Visa cards around the ’16 Rio Games. Visa said during its Q1 earnings call earlier this year that more than 350 banks in 32 markets utilized the Visa sponsorship to support their local strategies around Pyeongchang.

PRICE OF DEAL UNKNOWN: The price of Visa’s renewal is unknown. The last time the company re-upped with the IOC in ‘09, global IOC sponsorships were generally valued at roughly $100M per quadrennial. However, in ‘14, the IOC roughly doubled the price of its global packages to $200M, though sources caution there is really no such thing as a standard price any more. Olympics officials have said the new Olympic Channel digital platform would be included in all deals post ‘20, but the channel was not mentioned in today’s statement.

EQUITY IN THE GAMES: Despite the upheaval in Olympics sponsorship, Visa was always seen as likely to renew by industry experts. Few companies have built more equity in a given property than Visa has with the Olympics. In a Turnkey Sports poll after Pyeongchang, 60% of Olympics viewers correctly identified Visa as a sponsor without prompting, second only to Coca-Cola. Inside the industry, Visa has long been one of the most aggressive and closely watched Olympics advertiser and user of athlete endorsers, authoring memorable creative campaigns like "Go World!" in ‘08 and ‘12 and rejuvenating "Everywhere you want to be” in ‘14. It typically sponsors a global roster of several dozen individual athletes every two years. In the last two Olympics, Visa gained traction by a more unconventional approach to athletes, sponsoring the ‘16 Refugee Team and a Nigerian women's bobsled team in ‘18. Athletes and their agents also have seen Visa as a desirable sponsor even though it does not pay as well as many other sponsors, as it can be counted upon to place athletes in prominent media campaigns and lend gravitas to their careers.

 

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.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2018/07/31/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/Visa-IOC.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2018/07/31/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/Visa-IOC.aspx

CLOSE