IOC eyes healthy profits from Beijing Games

By Karolos Grohmann

ATHENS (Reuters) - From its dangerously empty coffers in the late 1970s to the multi-billion-dollar revenues from the Beijing 2008 Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has managed a remarkable commercial transformation of its prime product, the Olympic Games.

With broadcasting revenues for the period 2005-2008 reaching about $2.5 billion and a top sponsorship program adding some $900 million, the IOC's future certainly looks bright -- a far cry from the looming financial collapse of three decades ago.

The IOC is now a financially robust organization, having reinforced its position as a key player in the lucrative world of sport. It is run by professional managers as opposed to the amateurs with a love of sport who were in charge in the past.

Its financial overhaul in the 1980s, credited to then IOC chief Juan Antonio Samaranch, laid the foundations for its current growth that is expected to continue in the next Games.

IOC President Jacques Rogge told his organization in 2006 that the finances were so healthy the IOC could afford not to stage one edition of the Olympic Games, if forced by some external factor, and still have enough money to organize the Games eight years later.

"The financial prospects are very good," he told a meeting in Seoul. "The financial future of the Olympic movement is secured."

Total Olympic revenues for the most recent completed four-year period (2001-2004) exceeded $4 billion with 53 percent coming from broadcasters, 34 percent from sponsors, 11 from ticketing and 2 percent from licensing.

Some 92 percent of that amount was distributed to the IOC partners -- National Olympic Committees, international sports federations and Games organizing committees -- while 8 percent stayed with the IOC for operational and administrative costs.