Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Anheuser-Busch to sponsor Beijing '08 Olympics
AFP
BEIJING: Anheuser-Busch, the world's largest brewer, has signed up as a sponsor for the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the US-based company said Tuesday in Beijing.
The agreement marks the first time Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser, has sponsored a summer Olympics outside the United States, according to a statement from the company.
"People who like sports are beer drinkers, and people who are beer drinkers like sports," Patrick Stokes, chief executive of Anheuser-Busch, told a briefing in the Chinese capital. The company, which declined to reveal how much it would spend on sponsoring the 2008 Games, said the deal would allow it to use the Beijing Olympic logo for promotional purposes in 30 countries and regions, including China.
The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games said the agreement did not exclude future sponsorship deals with local brewers. "We're clear that there are some very famous beer brands in Beijing as well as in China as a whole," said Yuan Bin, a marketing executive with the Beijing committee.
"Some of them have already expressed their intention to become involved in sponsoring the Beijing Olympic Games," she said. As China prepares for the Olympics four years from now, companies inside and outside the country are competing fiercely to sponsor the world's most watched sports event. China's largest computer firm, Legend Group, said earlier this year its Lenovo PC brand had won a bid to become the exclusive computing technology equipment and service provider for the 2008 Games.
No financial details were given for that deal either, but Chinese media reports estimated Legend's sponsorship to be worth between $65 to 80 million.
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