With a £385m Airbnb sponsorship deal, is the Olympic spirit being sold out?

Despite the myriad doping scandals associated with the event, the Olympic Games has somehow preserved an air of authenticity. That could be about to change

The 2020 Olympics will take place in Tokyo next summer (Reuters)

What do the Olympic Games stand for? For a long time those famous rings have come to represent not just sport but a vaguely defined “spirit” of inclusion and participation. The athletes’ clothing and the sporting venues are deliberately kept clean of sponsorship as the Games tries to maintain a link to its roots in amateur competition. Despite the myriad doping scandals associated with the event, it has somehow preserved an air of authenticity.

But as the statesmanlike president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, unveiled a new £385m sponsorship deal with Airbnb at a swanky presentation in London earlier this week, it was tempting to wonder why all this was needed.

Why does the IOC need vast corporate sponsorship? Why does the IOC need a plush new £150m Swiss headquarters? Why does it require bank reserves of several hundred million pounds?

At the end of a slick presentation by Bach and Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, which cheered on the Olympic spirit and its tenuous link to the American company, came a flurry of searching and awkward questions from the media on the digital giant’s controversial tax affairs, the IOC’s creeping commercialism and, above all, whether any of this had any relevance to the Olympics beyond gaining another lavish new sponsor.

Herein lies the inherent paradox of sports journalism: an endeavour which often derives from a place of joy, even reverence, for sport’s great institutions, but which requires a cynical eye in order to hold truth to power. The Olympic rings remain a global brand and the Olympic Games are still a hugely popular event, but it all adds up to something highly marketable and it seems the IOC is not in the business of turning down generous offers.

All sport benefits from sponsorship, of course – but it is hard to escape the feeling that the Olympics sells a little of its spirit as it does.

Yours,

Lawrence Ostlere

Sports writer and features editor