The organizing committee of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games confirmed that the search for domestic sponsorships has been rather slow. However, POCOG President & CEO Kim Jin-sun told SBD Global that he expects sponsorship acquisition for the Games will get into full swing during the second half of the year. Kim blames the slow progress on the wait-and-see mentality of potential sponsors, saying that most of them seem to be testing the water first. "Most Korean companies wanted to see how things would turn out for the Sochi Games, and also there’s the Incheon Asian Games coming up this September," he said. The organizing committee launched its domestic marketing program last year. Despite reports of ongoing negotiations with sponsors in the categories of apparel, automobiles, banking, energy, construction, telecommunications and airlines, PyeongChang has yet to acquire a single domestic sponsor. Kim said that it will stay that way for at least another month or two. Then, he expects the organizing committee to ink a deal with a telecommunications partner. During a recent news conference in PyeongChang, Kim said that the organizers are working closely with two preferred bidders in sports apparel in addition to telecommunications. Kim hopes that the first deal will kickstart PyeongChang’s sponsorship sales activities. "We plan to pursue active sponsorship sales regardless of their categories -- Tiers 1, 2 and 3," he said. Domestic sponsorships are expected to generate about $700M toward the Games’ organizing budget of about $2B. While the number is higher than PyeongChang’s original goal of an estimated $600M in domestic deals, it is still short of the estimated $1B the Sochi Games generated in domestic sponsorships.
