The dollars and cents of the Olympics

Olympic sponsors sign a four-year contract with the IOC, so the sponsors for the Beijing games were also partners for the 2006 Turin games. With the lucrative Chinese market at stake, the Beijing and Turin games garnered a record 12 corporate Olympic partners, including Coca-Cola, GE, Johnson & Johnson, Chinese computer maker Lenovo and McDonald's.

The Olympics are also a solid investment for the partners themselves, since they become associated with Olympic themes of unity, sportsmanship and peace, said Sergio Zyman, chairman of sports marketing firm Zyman Group and the former chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola.

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