Bigger, faster, higher profit?
Posted August 11, 2012 9:11 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – From gold medal winners on Wheaties cereal boxes to McDonalds and Coke in the athletes village.
SFU marketing professor Lindsey Meredith says the days of athletes wearing lily white uniforms and corporate logos being covered up are long gone.
“[It’s] the whole issue of how corporate agenda has worked very much to the front of Olympic presentation and how state financing has become very, very important in terms of gaining national notoriety,” Meredith explains.
He says he’s seen a lot of differences starting with Atlanta in 1996.
“The Olympic movement has been renowned for the slow pace for which it has moved in the past,” Meredith notes. “But you know what? Money is an interesting product and it tends to speed a lot of stuff up and I’ve noticed big changes in the Olympics in the last 10 years, especially compared to the last 50.”
In the coming Olympics, Meredith only sees corporations playing a bigger role.
