Grumblings Of Discontent In Corporate Olympic Paradise

HEINEKEN, the world's third largest beer brewer, is unhappy with the International Olympic Committee. The IOC has acquired too damned many sponsors, says the company, and you can't even tell the difference between the global and the local sponsors. All over Rio, the logos and ad slogans bedeck the city. Buses transporting spectators and athletes are adorned with OFF bug spray ads, surrounded by the iconic Olympic rings. A local shopping mall proclaims itself the "official shopping mall of the 2016 Olympics!" A major hotel has been taken over by Nissan. Every consumer item from paper cups to T shirts announces the presence of a beer distributorship, fast food franchise, cigarette brand, or athletic footwear manufacturer; capitalism at its self promotional best, inundating what was once a purely amateur event with all the gawdy greed of the modern free market world. And Heineken isn't happy; they believe they have earned the right to stand out in the advertising crowd, having paid big money for it. So too, in all likelihood, do all the other companies, who together have spent billions of dollars in Brazil's suffering economy for the privilege and benefits associated with being seen by all the world. Including world wide broadcast rights, the total amount of revenue flowing to the IOC in the past four years easily exceeds five billion American dollars. So Heineken can complain all they want. What do they expect, a monopoly on media exposure at the most enormous athletic event in human history? Don't they believe in the free market, in free access, in competition? Evidently not. Heineken has spent the past few years swallowing up all the small beer producers it can get its grubby hands on. The IOC itself is showing no sympathy. The committee believes its the responsibility of the advertisers themselves to ensure that they stand out in a crowd, and the plan is to carry right on, with ever more sponsors lining up to pay big bucks for a chance in the limelight in Tokyo in 2020.TD Ameritrade, which sponsors the American Olympic group, is satisfied, so, shouldn't everyone else, including Heineken, toe the line, and do what they can with what they have purchased? After all, nobody forced the company into anything they weren't looking for.