Human Rights and Mega-Sporting Event Sponsorship

Corporate sponsorship has become integral to the financing of mega-sporting events (MSE), but it has also become a lightning rod for campaigners, including over the human rights reputations of the corporate sponsors themselves, and the possible leverage the sponsors may be able to exert over host governments in relation to domestic and international human rights issues.

This report outlines what is at stake when it comes to human rights and the sponsorship of MSEs, the challenges sponsors can face and pose, some responses MSE sponsors have taken in the past, and concludes with a set of recommendations that all sponsors should take to ensure human rights considerations are taken into account.

The material in this report was originally written for the www.megasportingevents.org website to expand on and advance the research contained in IHRB’s 2013 report “Striving for Excellence: Mega-Sporting Events and Human Rights”. It is accurate and up to date as of May 2014. The www.megasportingevents.org website has since been updated and the original content replaced. The original content has been archived into this series of short reports to maintain their usefulness as early contributions to the body of research on mega-sporting events and human rights.