News International Loses Team GB Deal

The contract giving News International’s newspapers exclusive access to British athletes in the run-up to the London Olympic Games has been torn up in the wake of the hacking scandal.

News International had been signed as the exclusive media partner of the Team GB athletes.

The Times, Sunday Times, The Sun, and the now-closed News of the World, were also allowed to use the slogan of ‘Official Newspaper of Team 2012’.

Athletes including Sir Chris Hoy, Rebecca Adlington and Jessica Ennis could have been linked to the newspapers.

The deal was done by the then News International chief executive, Rebekah Brooks.

At the time of the deal Brooks commented: ‘This unique partnership gives our newspapers unrivalled access to the Team 2012 athletes and means we will be able to throw our full support behind the team and give our readers the inside track’.

According to media reports, the decision was been made by the joint venture partners in the Team 2012 initiative, which was launched to raise money for British sport.

The partners include the London Olympic organising committee, chaired by Lord Coe, the British Olympic Association, ParalympicsGB and UK Sport, the government agency that allocates public money to Olympic sport.

Team 2012 said in a statement: ‘The Team 2012 joint venture, including Visa as its presenting partner, has had a contract with the News International Group as its official media partner’.

‘As a result of the closure of News of the World, the contract can no longer be fulfilled as originally envisaged’.

‘All parties in the joint venture are working to make sure that we continue to give the 1,200-plus athletes from Team 2012 Visa the best chance of achieving success. To help drive national support for Team 2012, we are now exploring media partnerships across a range of channels’.