India should soon see its first Olympics sponsor, a sign of the country's growing Games influence

PARIS (AP) — The International Olympic Committee expects to add an Indian sponsor soon in a sign of the country's growing influence over the Olympics during a bid to host the 2036 Summer Games.

The IOC currently has 15 top-tier partners, which collectively paid almost $740 million last year in cash and services, though none from India.

“We would love to welcome a first new TOP sponsor from India and I am sure that this is going to happen very, very soon,” Anne-Sophie Voumard, the IOC’s marketing director said Wednesday, using the acronym of The Olympic Partner commercial program.

“For us, it is certainly a country that we believe has a lot of potential, including on commercial,” Voumard said. “Its GDP is increasing and developing really, really nicely.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Olympic sports officials last year that the country would bid to host in 2036 during a speech in Mumbai, where the IOC had its annual meeting.

The 111 IOC members include Nita Ambani, the wife of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who heads the Reliance Industries conglomerate. The lavish wedding of their son, Anant, made global headlines ahead of the ceremony last month.

Celebrations for the celebrity-packed wedding were held at the same Reliance-owned convention center in Mumbai where the IOC met nine months earlier. Some IOC members, including FIFA president Gianni Infantino, attended both events.

The Reliance charitable foundation is hosting an India House hospitality venue in Paris, opened by Ambani and his wife on July 27, which has been a discreet projection of the country’s Olympic ambitions.

The IOC has at least one sponsor deal ending this year, with Japanese car maker Toyota, and several others are up for renewal.

Olympic sponsorship has for 40 years typically leaned on companies from the United States and Japan. Two more Japanese sponsors, Bridgestone and Panasonic, have IOC deals expiring this year.

“It’s a very, very dynamic program,” Voumard said of the TOP slate, adding that “partners come and go depending on their business strategy.”

Interest for IOC deals is also expected from Qatar, which wants to host the 2036 Olympics in Doha, and Saudi Arabia, which now has a 12-year deal to host the Esport Olympic Games.

Voumard declined to comment at a briefing Wednesday on “specific conversations” with potential partners.

New sponsorships would start with the 2026 Winter Games being hosted in Milan and ski resorts across northern Italy, and then the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. The other Olympic hosts leading to the 2036 edition are: the French Alps in 2030; Brisbane, Australia in 2032; and Salt Lake City in 2034.

The IOC has set no timetable for picking a 2036 Summer Games host in an updated process that lets Olympic leaders pick a preferred candidate at any time. Those exclusive talks can lead to a confirmatory vote by IOC members without a rival bid.

The choice of Brisbane, confirmed in Tokyo in 2021, was widely seen as opaque and having blindsided the plans of Qatar, whose ruling Emir has been an IOC member since 2002.

At that time, Qatar was preparing to host the 2022 World Cup in soccer and also has hosted world championships in key Olympic sports track and field, gymnastics and swimming.

Other cities and countries showing interest in hosting the Summer Games in 2036 or 2040 include Istanbul in Turkey, Germany and Indonesia.

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