IOC hails Athens Olympics marketing success

ATHENS, Jan 28 (AFP) - The International Olympic Committee (IOC) hailed the 2004 Athens Olympics as a marketing success, in a report released Friday.
"The Athens 2004 Marketing Report heralds the success of Olympic marketing programmes and the power of Olympic partnership," IOC President Jacques Rogge said in the document's introduction.
According to the document, 3.58 million tickets were sold in the August 13-29 Games -- more than in the Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996 Games but short of the 6.7 million tickets of the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
The IOC qualified the Games' licencing programmes as a "tremendous success" as licence fees reached 86 million euros, beating forecasts by 26 percent.
Retail sales of Olympics products totalled 530.2 million euros, less than the 770-million-euro sales projected in a March 2002 report by Athens Olympics organisers ATHOC.
The Games' sponsoring programme fetched more than 300 million euros against initial estimates of around 200 million euros. The sale of television broadcast rights generated 1.48 billion euros.

01/28/2005 18:24 GMT - AFP