The Controversy Over Olympic Sponsorships

Rick Burton, David B. Falk Endowed Professor of Sport Management in Falk College, authored an op-ed for Sportico and was interviewed for the Voice of America story “As Activists Increase Pressure, Beijing Olympics Sponsors Remain Largely Silent.”

Burton discusses the controversial conversation of sponsors in the Olympics saying, “The bottom line is always the bottom line. They’re looking at the value of the sponsorship worldwide, not just in the United States. So Coca-Cola or Visa knows that they’re going to get some heat in the United States, maybe, but they’re not going to get any heat in, let’s say, China, or in Australia or Germany, where these issues may not rise to the level that they will in the United States.”