Today’s Boston Globe featured a great article by Shira Springer called ‘Green before gold’, about the challenges of Olympic funding and sponsorships in today’s economic climate. The tough economic times do not make it easy for Olympic athletes and teams to get the resources necessary to support their efforts. Unconventional actions have included comedian Stephen Colbert and his ColbertNation sponsoring the US Olympic Speedskating team for the forthcoming Vancouver Olympics. For the past several weeks, he has not only talked about his sponsorship, but also filmed hilarious episodes featuring him trying out different Olympic sports, including luge, skeleton, and bobsled. Needless to say, the exposure he has given the Olympics has been terrific, in addition to the $300,000+ his sponsorship has raised. The current sponsorship challenges are likely to change, hopefully for the better, as economies improve around the world. But improvement in sports sponsorship funding will be slow for the next couple of years and, as happens with most economic downturns, companies will change their criteria for determining sponsorship value. Creative approaches will increasingly determine sponsorship support, with performance-based results driving matching, and/or increasing, sponsorship contributions. As with any sport, actual outcomes are hard to predict and surprises happen (an easy example is the oft-referenced ‘Miracle’ U.S. gold medal winning hockey team of 1980). Corporate sponsors will ultimately rely on the power of the Olympics (or any sport, for that matter) to determine success and appeal. For the Olympics, the idea of the Games, and the values associated with Olympic Ideals, will continue to drive value.