TOKYO: Olympic sponsor Panasonic is terminating its contract with the IOC at the end of the year, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
Panasonic is one of 15 companies that are so-called TOP sponsors for the International Olympic Committee.
The value of Panasonic's sponsorship is not known, but sponsors contribute more than $2 billion in a four-year cycle to the IOC.
In a statement, Panasonic said it became an IOC sponsor in 1987 and expanded to the Paralympics in 2014.
It did not make clear why it was changing course and said only that it was related to continual “reviews [of] how sponsorship should evolve.”
Two other Japanese companies are also among the IOC’s 15 leading sponsors.
Toyota, which for several months has reportedly been ready to end its contract, was contacted on Tuesday by The Associated Press but offered no new information.
“Toyota has been supporting the Olympic and Paralympic movements since 2015 and continues to do so,” Toyota said in a statement.
“No announcement to suggest otherwise has been made by Toyota.”
Japanese sponsors seem to have turned away from the Olympics, likely related to the one-year delay in holding the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. .
The COVID-19 delay reduced sponsors’ visibility, with no fans allowed to attend competition venues, ran up the costs, and unearthed myriad corruption scandals around the Games.
Tyre maker Bridgestone told AP “nothing has been decided.”
Toyota had a contract valued at $835 million – reported to be the IOC’s largest when it was announced in 2015. It included four Olympics beginning with the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games in South Korea and ran through the just-completed Paris Olympics and Paralympics.
Reports in Japan suggest Toyota may keep its Paralympic sponsorship.
The IOC TOP sponsors are: AB InBev, Airbnb, Alibaba, Allianz, Atos, Bridgestone, Coca-Cola, Deloitte, Intel, Omega, Panasonic, P&G, Samsung, Toyota, and Visa.
In a report several months ago by the Japanese news agency Kyodo, unnamed sources said Toyota was unhappy with how the IOC uses sponsorship money. It said the money was “not used effectively to support athletes and promote sports.”
Japan was once a major source of revenue, but increasingly the IOC has sought out sponsors from China, with growing interest from the Middle East and India.
Japan officially spent $13 billion on the Tokyo Olympics, at least half of which was public money. A government audit suggested the real cost was twice that. The IOC contribution was about $1.8 billion.
The Tokyo Games were mired in corruption scandals linked to local sponsorships and the awarding of contracts. Dentsu Inc., the huge Japanese marketing and public relations company, was the marketing arm of the Tokyo Olympics and raised a record $3.3 billion in local sponsorship money. This is separate from TOP sponsors.
French prosecutors also looked into alleged vote-buying in the IOC’s decision in 2013 to pick Tokyo as the host for the 2020 Summer Games.
The IOC had income of $7.6 billion in the last four-year cycle ending with the Tokyo Games. Figures have not been released yet for the cycle ending with the Paris Olympics.
The IOC’s TOP sponsors paid over $2 billion in that period. The figure is expected to reach $3 billion in the next cycle.