General Electric: Olympics Bring $100 Million in Sales

General Electric sold about $100 million of lights, power supplies and medical devices for the London Olympic Games. Less than for Beijing's massive build-out but still enough to justify the largest U.S. conglomerate's sponsorship, officials said.

Since signing on as a top-level Olympic sponsor in 2005, GE has generated about $1 billion in revenue from selling equipment for the stadiums and athlete villages in Torino, Beijing and Vancouver - with about half that amount coming from China's 2008 games.

"At the time when Beijing went for the Olympics, they invested a lot. There was just a lot more to be built and developed," said Beth Comstock, GE's chief marketing officer. "London has a much more measured approach in terms of infrastructure, but we certainly are happy that we participated." The backers of the London games spent about $14 billion in building new Olympic venues and overhauling existing sites, well less than the estimated $40 billion that China spent.

The Fairfield, Connecticut-based company declined to say how much it paid for its Olympic sponsorship - Olympic contracts prohibit sponsors from disclosing the amount - but said the revenue generated from Olympic projects has justified its sponsorship. "It has been a good return for us," said Comstock. "It has been easily justifiable, a no-brainer in terms of the return."

GE's sponsorship contract runs through 2020. While the world's largest maker of electric turbines and jet engines no longer owns a majority stake in U.S. Olympic broadcaster NBC Universal, it is still finding that the sponsorship has paid off, Comstock said.

That is largely because the Olympics give it a chance to show off its ability to sell into large-scale projects. GE has made a practice of pitching its wares directly to governments in emerging markets, from Saudi Arabia to China, for large-scale infrastructure projects like power plants and water purification systems, Comstock said.

The 11 top-level Olympic sponsors also include McDonald's, Dow Chemical and Visa.

Want to read more about the Olympic Games? See all of Wiley's London 2012 publications here, including the all-important official commemorative book.