M A I N   N E W S

Sydney: how sponsors were sidelined
From Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

SYDNEY — Bribery, corruption and drug scandals that have rocked the Olympic movement during the past 12 years notwithstanding, Sydney has been successful to a great extent in restoring the “noble look of Olympics”, thanks to its new model of keeping the “sponsors” and “multinationals” on the sidelines.

Successful in preserving the ambience of the Olympic city. Sydney, unlike Atlanta, did not allow the Games to be “hijacked” either by corporate houses or by vendors brawling with each other over every inch of available space on roads leading to the Olympic venues.

The roads, the pavements, open spaces, parks were all maintained and kept free from vendors or from being exploited by corporate houses from building tented townships to display their ware and products. Instead, the Games were restored to the athletes, the officials and above all the spectators.

The funding mostly came from the Australian Government, New South Wales Government and the Sydney city.

Sponsors, who virtually funded and ran the 1996 Olympic Games, had been shown the right place. The Sydney’s famous Opera House, the green open spaces, the footpaths, railway stations and other public places here had all been spared the “agony of consumerism and commercialisation”.

Though “pin and badge collectors and dealers” mushroomed all over Homebush during the past weeks, there was not much of commercial activity in or around the Olympic venues. Some vends of cold drinks, ice cream, camera and film rolls were permitted inside the Olympic area where only the International Sports Federations or their authorised agents had the permission to market official merchandise.

Unlike Atlanta, there were no billowing corporate tents or the multinational open vends and stalls brandishing their latest products. The only exception was Samsung Athletes Centre where family members and relatives of participating athletes were provided huge TV screens, besides food and snacks, to watch their own boys and girls in action. There too, no commercial use was permitted.

India, which is now making a bid to organise the 2002 Asian Games after the inaugural Afro-Asian Games next year, can draw a lesson from the Sydney model. The State support without burdening the tax payer and funding the organisational part through TV rights and other sponsorships without compromising on the cherished principles of the Olympic movement can generate enough finances for smooth and peaceful conduct of both the Afro-Asian and Asian Games in coming two years with the country hoping to play host to the Commonwealth Games in near the future.

The organisers maintained that the “Olympic Games” belonged to everyone and not to “sponsors” or “multinationals alone”. They have been successful in putting a stop to rampant commercialisation of this biggest sporting event of the earth. Atlanta had roped in multinationals and corporates into the organisation after expected financial support from the State and the Atlanta city did not come through on expected lines.

The organisers have placed before the world a new model — a complete turn back from Atlanta. Even the thinking in the IOC has been to retract itself from totally privately funded Olympics as it happened in Atlanta. “Such a commercial venture,” the IOC officials maintain, “ is possible only in the USA.”

Shameless commercialisation of the Olympic Games was to a great extent violative of the International Olympic Committee’s own norms, including its cherished business principles.

Though some of the major sponsors of the Olympic Games and others were permitted to put up huge hoardings in Sydney, but not within the Olympic area at Homebush. Some huge hoardings came up at Darling Harbor, the pride of the city, where the entire IOC family and the bidding cities for the 2008 Olympic Games had put up their offices.