New sponsorship categories could help Olympic federations

CHICAGO (AP) — Elk Grove Village is holding its own version of “The Bachelor.” It has a nice green rose with five zeroes behind it.

Now it’s looking for the right partner.

With Olympic leaders concerned about funding heading into the Tokyo Games, Elk Grove is looking to sponsor a U.S. federation in another bid to generate exposure for the Chicago suburb after attracting some lucrative attention for its partnership with college football's Bahamas Bowl.

“We’re the bachelor and we’re going out to the bachelorettes, or we’re the bachelorette going out to the bachelors,” Mayor Craig Johnson said.

While Elk Grove is looking to have a little fun with the project — it's asking for potential suitors to send in videos it plans to post online and show on its TV station — the Olympic movement also could benefit from a blueprint for more creative advertising and marketing deals.

The Tokyo Games were pushed back to 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the next Winter Olympics begin about six months later in Beijing — creating a challenging situation for some national governing bodies of summer and winter federations.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced last month it was eliminating 51 positions and furloughing 33 more as part of a dramatic cut in staffing designed to trim up to 20% of its budget.

“Traditionally for an NGB or a sports team, there’s a set amount of categories or, you know, kind of more standard categories of companies that would spend,” said Dan Migala, the co-founder of 4FRONT, a sports marketing firm that is helping Elk Grove with the project.

“But then when you open up a new category, I think it opens the door to creativity. It opens the door to doing something that’s never been done before."

There are...