Exclusive: TOP programme may generate $2 billion in Tokyo 2020 cycle, as Olympic Movement homes in on first $10 billion quadrennium

The Olympic Partner (TOP) worldwide sponsorship programme could generate $2 billion in the next Olympic cycle ©

A senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) official has indicated that The Olympic Partner (TOP) worldwide sponsorship programme could conceivably generate $2 billion (£1.3 billion/€1.8 million) in the next Olympic cycle - a near doubling in value from the present quadrennium culminating after Rio 2016.

With Tokyo 2020 domestic sponsorship packages selling like piping hot cakes and broadcasting rights for 2017-20 set to raise approximately $4.5 billion (£2.9 billion/€4.1 billion), it is starting to look like the first quadrennium in which both Winter and Summer Games are staged in Asia might also be the first to generate in excess of $10 billion (£6.5 million/€9 billion) for the Movement from broadcasting, sponsorship, ticketing and licensing.

This would be up from just over $8 billion (£5 billion/€7 billion) in the 2009-2012 cycle - a period that brought sizeable jumps in both ticketing and broadcasting revenue.

As recently as 2001-2004, the cycle including the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Games and Athens 2004, revenue raised from the four main sources reached "only" $4.2 billion (£2.7 billion/€3.8 billion).

Interviewed in Kuala Lumpur, Timo Lumme, the IOC’s managing director television and marketing services, said of TOP: “If things go well, it could be that we reach the 2024 target by 2020”.

insidethegames reported last October, again based on comments made by Lumme, that the IOC was targeting $2 billion (£1.3 billion/€1.8 million) from the TOP programme by 2024.

It is only in the Rio 2016 quadrennium that TOP will for the first time contribute more than $1 billion in cash and value-in-kind to the Movement.

The big jump now foreseen for the next cycle implies that more new deals may be in prospect.

But it also appears to be the consequence in part of the mould-breaking deal announced in March with Japanese carmaker Toyota covering the 2017-2024 period.

Until now, this has been a domestic sponsorship category, leaving Games hosts - and indeed other National Olympic Committees - to do their own deals with carmakers on a country-by-country basis.

International Olympic Committee managing director television and marketing services Timo Lumme says they could their 2024 TOP target by 2020 ©Getty Images

This would have provided IOC negotiators with some sort of benchmark against which to price a worldwide deal for the new TOP mobility category.

When it was first reported by Kyodo News Agency that an agreement with Toyota was imminent, a possible value “in the vicinity of ¥100 billion (£543 million/$835 million/€747 million)” was mentioned.

I am not aware of this price tag having been officially confirmed over the subsequent five months.

However, the IOC’s confidence regarding the TOP programme’s escalating value would seem to enhance the plausibility of that figure.

The new Olympic media channel could, meanwhile, enable TOP sponsors to generate extra exposure for their marketing dollars, persuading them that it is worth paying more to remain part of the programme in future.

TOP has grown enormously since it began by generating $96 million (£62 million/€88 million) for the IOC in the 1985-1988 quadrennium.

It was valued at $950 million (£613 million/€866 million) in 2009-2012.