Eli Lilly is doubling down on the Olympics. Three years after partnering with Team USA and NBCUniversal for Tokyo 2020, the drugmaker has extended its deals and teamed up with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games—muscling in on a space targeted by its rival Sanofi in the process.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams and NBCUniversal, the U.S. media partner of the Games, struck a one-year deal with Lilly early in 2020. Lilly used the relationship as a launchpad for a big branding push, which saw it run its first corporate ad and a series of mini-documentaries profiling members of Team USA as part of a campaign that spanned TV, digital, social, print, events and out of home promotions.
France’s Sanofi is sponsoring the next Games in Paris in 2024. But while that opportunity has gone to the hometown drugmaker, Lilly has still spied a way to ensure it is visible in Paris and secured a role in the summer and winter Olympics through 2028.
The new deal has several parts. The wholly new element is Lilly’s partnership with the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Ahead of the Games coming to Los Angeles in five years time, Lilly will serve on a council of commercial partners that will work together to “positively impact” the event.
Lilly has also extended its agreement with Team USA and NBCUniversal to include all the Games up to and including LA28. The revised deal positions Lilly to “leverage marketing and media opportunities with NBCUniversal to raise awareness of treatments for diabetes, cancer and other conditions” in conjunction with the Summer Olympics in Paris and Los Angeles and the Milan 2026 Winter Olympics.
The revised deal makes Lilly an “official Team USA partner in prescription medicine and health equity.” Lilly used its Tokyo 2020 deal to question the U.S. healthcare system, running an ad that said: “Watching the success of our athletes will once again give the impression that America is the healthiest country in the world. We aren’t. But we can be.”