VANCOUVER — Organizers of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics have topped $1 billion in domestic sponsorship revenue, putting the group more than three times ahead of its initial target.
The organizers, with four years to go before the games open, pierced the level after inking a sponsorship deal Friday with Russian Railways, or RZD, which joins state-run oil giant Rosneft on the list of other major domestic sponsors.
Sochi Games chief Dmitry Chernyshenko denied that the deals were part of a back-door way to get government aid.
"Absolutely not," Chernyshenko said in an interview in Vancouver, where he and other officials are studying how their Canadian counterparts are handling operations during the 2010 Games.
"I expect that we will probably not use public funds or government money. We will stay with the partnership investment only," he added, speaking through a translator.
The sponsorship funding could be particularly important because the government said last year that it was slashing its state budget for the 2014 Games by more than $600 million because of the global economic crisis.
Sochi officials valued the new deal at $115 million, bringing the total value of domestic sponsorship revenues to $1.1 billion, Chernyshenko said.
Russian Railways joins Sochi's eight other Tier One partners, which include Rostelecom, MegaFon, Rosneft, Sberbank, Aeroflot, Volkswagen and Bosco Sport.
When Beijing hosted the Summer Games, which traditionally have significantly higher revenues than Winter Games, the organizers had about $1 billion in domestic sponsorship.
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