Toyota Poised To End Olympic Sponsorship After Paris 2024

Japanese carmaker Toyota is going to end its massive sponsorship deal with the International Olympic Committee after this year’s Paris Olympics, according to domestic news.

The Japanese carmaker has an agreement through the 2024 Paris Games, which was reported to be valued at a whopping US$835m when it was announced in 2015. The deal included four Olympics beginning with the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games in South Korea and ran through Paris.

Japanese news agency Kyodo mentioned that Toyota was unsatisfied with the way sponsorship money was utilised by the IOC. The news agency, quoting the insiders, said the money was “not used effectively to support athletes and promote sports.”

Due to strong public sentiment in Japan not to host the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Toyota pulled a plug on ad spending for the sporting event.??Apart from public resentment, the Tokyo Games were also mired in corruption scandals linked to bid-rigging.????

It was reported the IOC had a sponsorship income of over US$2 billion in the last four-year cycle ending with the Tokyo Games, taking up 30% of its total income. This figure is tipped to hit US$3 billion in the next cycle.????

As for the Paris Games, Toyota is supplying 3,000 fuel-cell vehicles for the??to showcase its green technology.

According to ASN data, Toyota (8.3%, US$87.1m+) is the second highest investor in the Asian sponsorship landscape since Q321, with an average quarterly investment of almost US$7.8m during this period. In terms of spending allocation, Japan (54.4%), China (24.8%) and Thailand (16.5%) are the three largest markets. As for Q224, Toyota’s spending is forecasted to hit slightly over US$6.8m.

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This article was first published in ASN's May 2024 no. 4 newswire.