Partnership History

The Coca-Cola Company has long supported and shared in the growth and evolution of the Olympic Games.  Our enduring relationship began when a freighter delivered the U.S. Olympic Team and 1,000 cases of Coca-Cola® to the Amsterdam 1928 Olympic Games.  More recently, on August 1, 2005, The Coca-Cola Company and the International Olympic Committee announced the renewal of our historic partnership for an unprecedented 12 additional years, lengthening the role of Coca-Cola as a Worldwide Olympic Partner from 2009 through 2020 – a deal that extends our global support of the Olympic Games to 92 years without interruption.

With this agreement, our support continues from the conclusion of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games through the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the London 2012 Olympic Games, the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, and the Olympic Games of 2016 (summer), 2018 (winter) and 2020 (summer).

Read about our 80 year relationship with the Olympic Games. (PDF)

As a Worldwide Olympic Partner, The Coca-Cola Company receives global marketing rights in the nonalcoholic beverages category and use of the Olympic symbols and mascots in advertising and promotional activity.

Our extraordinary, ongoing journey features numerous milestones and landmark programs, as well as some intriguing connections:

• J. Paul Austin, who competed with the U.S. Rowing Team at the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games, later served as president, then chief executive officer, and finally chairman of The Coca-Cola Company.
• Swimming gold medalist (and later actor) Johnny Weissmuller in 1934 became the first Olympian to endorse Coca-Cola.
• We mobilized bottling production across the United Kingdom to serve athletes and spectators at the first Olympic Games following World War II, in London in 1948.
• Our bottlers provided Oslo residents with their first look at a helicopter at the 1952 Olympic Winter Games in Norway.
• For the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games, we produced a popular Japanese-English phrase book that became a model for translation guides at subsequent Games.
• Our first sponsorship of national television coverage of both the winter and summer editions of the Olympic Games occurred in 1968 in the United States.
• We purchased a horse and donated it to the Canadian Equestrian Team for the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games.
• We introduced the world’s first figure-skating robot as the star of a fund-raising tour in advance of the Lake Placid 1980 Olympic Winter Games.
• In 1987, Coca-Cola became the first sponsor of the Olympic Museum, which opened in 1993 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
• We broke new ground as an Olympic Partner by creating the “Coca-Cola World Chorus,” which performed at the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Calgary 1988 Olympic Winter Games.
• We have taken the pin trading phenomenon to new heights as “the No. 1 spectator sport of the Olympic Games” and an official fixture at every Games since 1988.
• The Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games marked the first time our Company served Olympic fans with both hot and cold ready-to-drink beverages.
• Among our breakthrough environmental initiatives for the Olympic Games has been a prototype, 100-percent biodegradable cold drink cup for Salt Lake 2002.
• We are six-time presenters of the Olympic Torch Relay – including the first two Relays to go around the world (Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008).
• In recent years, our interactive attractions and entertainment venues have been smash hits for spectators when not actually attending Olympic Games events.  The attractions have included Coca-Cola Olympic City (Atlanta 1996), Coca-Cola On The Ice (Salt Lake 2002), Coke O.N. Air (Athens 2004) and Coca-Cola Live Olympic (Torino 2006).
• Our global Coca-Cola system continues to develop unique Olympic Games promotions for consumers around the world, such as in Canada, where fans in 2006 could win trips to any city worldwide that has hosted (or will host) the Olympic Winter Games.

We invite you to read thorough our Partnership Timeline (PDF) to discover more fun facts and historical details surrounding the unparalleled partnership between The Coca-Cola Company and the Olympic Games.