Nike’s Visibility At Olympics Upsets Some Official Sponsors

Olympic officials show little patience for companies trying to capitalize on the Games without becoming official sponsors.

But one non-sponsor from Oregon is capitalizing in a big way. In Atlanta, it seems the Olympic rings can’t touch the Nike swoosh.

Near the Olympic Village, “Nike Park” is an 82,000-square-foot advertising mecca for the Beaverton athletic shoe and apparel company.

Inside the converted parking garage, visitors shoot baskets and kick soccer balls. Standing behind a Plexiglas wall, tennis fans can experience life on the receiving end of a 120-mph Pete Sampras serve.

But unlike Coca-Cola, AT&T and other major companies, not to mention shoe and apparel rivals like Reebok and Champion, Nike has no official role in the 1996 Summer Games.

And that’s just fine with Nike, a multibillion-dollar marketing machine with ties to more than 1,000 of the 15,000 athletes competing in Atlanta.

“Sports is a full-time gig for us,” said spokesman Keith Peters. “At the end of these Games, we’ll still be actively involved in supporting sports of all levels. … We feel that’s a better use of our resources.”

A spokesman for Coca-Cola, which has been an Olympic sponsor since the 1928 Games in Amsterdam, refused to single out Nike.

But Randy Donaldson criticized companies that refuse to match sponsors’ payments of up to $40 million and still try to cash in on the publicity.

“We frown on ambush marketers, people who try to get the benefit of the Games without directly supporting them,” he said.

Coke has a 12-acre Olympic City theme park in downtown Atlanta.

The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games says 70 percent of the $1.7 billion Games’ tab comes from corporate sponsorship and licensing fees.

Still, the committee doesn’t begrudge Nike any more than does Coke, though customers may wrongly identify the shoe giant as an official sponsor.

“We have considerably less problems with Nike than other companies that discover sports during the Olympic Games then abandon them,” said ACOG spokesman Darby Coker.

Coker said the committee does, however, disagree with the aggressive tone of Nike’s latest advertising campaign.

A Nike billboard states: “You Don’t Win Silver, You Lose Gold.”

A national TV spot includes footage of a distance runner vomiting and a bloody mouthpiece being knocked from a boxer’s mouth.

“The Olympic creed talks about ‘It’s not winning, it’s participating,”’ Coker said. “Winning at all costs is not what the Olympics are all about.”

ACOG has budgeted $10 million to go after companies that improperly use the Olympic name, trademark or logo in advertising, Coker said.

A company can get into trouble for simply referring to the Olympics, as the Audi car company found out. Audi ran a billboard in Atlanta claiming the “best seats” at the Games could be found in one of its cars.

About a dozen other major companies, including the U.S. Postal Service, GTE, Toshiba, Heineken and the state of Florida, have received warning letters from ACOG, Coker said.

“Anything that undermines sponsorship or damages that revenue is a survival issue for the Games,” Coker said. “We take it pretty seriously.”