In a surprise move, IBM Corp said Friday it was pulling out as official worldwide sponsor for the Olympic Games following disagreements over price with the International Olympic Committee. The computer hardware and services giant said it had decided not to sign up to another eight year contract – a deal that would lock the company into sponsoring four more winter and summer games – because it could not justify the investment based on the marketing return we could reasonably expect. A spokesperson for IBM told ComputerWire that the crux of the dispute came down to costs. She said that as the games were getting bigger and bigger, the technology required to run them was also becoming more complex, and thus expensive. She said that in the past IBM had provided the technology for free, but looking to the future, the company decided it was time to ask the IOC to cough up some of the money as well, via its local organizing committees; a request that seemingly fell on deaf ears. The IOC didn’t disagree with us over how much it would all cost, just about how much they were prepared to pay, she said. Not surprisingly, press reports cite IOC representatives as saying IBM’s projected costs were too high and that the committee had decided to look at other options for future Olympics. Whatever the ins and outs, divorcing itself from the world’s most watched sports event will leave IBM with something of a marketing gap to plug. So what does Big Blue have up its sleeve? Well, according to the spokesperson, very little. We haven’t really taken an in depth look or made any final decisions as to how we’ll reallocate the money, she said, we’re so focused on the Sydney games (in 2000) that we haven’t had enough time to make that depth of analysis yet. IBM claims its well-publicized technology problems at the 1996 Atlanta summer games had nothing to do with its decision. We wonder whether it has eyes on other prizes such as the World Cup.
