More corporations jumping on sports sponsorship bandwagon

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It's not just athletes going for gold at the Olympics. For some major multinational companies, the event is also about big business and marketing.

The International Olympic Committee is expected to rake in around US$1 billion this year through corporate sponsorship, which has remained high despite the uncertain returns.

According to the Economist, the Olympics sponsorship amount for the 2012 London Games is US$957 million from just 11 sponsoring organisations.

A significant share of that pile is coming from Asia, with companies convinced the burgeoning sports industry can pay dividends by association.

Electronics and smartphone maker Samsung, a global partner of this year's London Games, says it hopes to use the Olympics as a platform to expand its international reach and to develop the relationship with its global consumer base.

Ms Irene Ng, Vice President of Marketing at Samsung Electronics, said: "We believe that sports is a very good platform for unifying people, and certainly through sports we can see values like the pursuit of excellence, which is very much in line with our global brand values. We also sponsor Chelsea Football Club, and you can see that we are very happy to explore every kind of sporting opportunities."

One of three Asian-based worldwide partners of this year's Games, Samsung says its marketing effort has helped to drive sales of its Galaxy S-3 smartphone.

Asia has become a hotbed for sports and is home to a number of high-profile international events such as Formula One in Singapore and the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

"We are seeing, for example the Youth Olympic Games hosted in Singapore, the Barclays Singapore Open and the SingTel Formula One. We have seen (large sporting) events in Asia over the last ten years where those events previously didn't exist," explains Mr Andrew Georgiou, Chief Operating Officer of World Sport Group, a sports marketing agency headquartered in Singapore.

"But that has also been driven by the desire from companies wanting to sponsor those events. So the two go hand in hand - world-class events and the support of the corporate sponsors. Corporate sponsors drive those events into further and greater success."

Like any advertising, calculating returns from sponsoring the Games is an uncertain science.

Very clear, however, is the upward trend of corporate money chasing the sporting dollar.