Olympic team seeks 15m sponsorship

The British Olympic Committee plans to raise 15m through sponsorship over the next four months to fund the British team.

The committee has handed the task to its head of marketing Marzena Bogdanowicz, who leads a commercial and marketing department formed in December.

The department is seeking 15 sponsors, which will pay 1m each to become full sponsors of both the Winter Games in 1998 in Nagano, Japan and the Millennium Summer Games in Sydney, Australia.

For the previous games, the committee raised 14m. However, the money was raised from 25 different companies and a wide variety of packages had to be sold.

Companies which take up the packages will have access to Olympic footage and sports stars in the UK. They will also be able to use the British Olympic symbol, which features a lion and the five Olympic rings, in their marketing.

They will not be able to use the rings on their own, as this right is granted only to worldwide sponsors, which pay 28m for the privilege.