Olympics and ambush marketing: the rule every brand should understand before Los Angeles 2028

Italy fined six companies for tying their brands to the Milano Cortina 2026 Games without the rights. It is proof that this ground is expensive. The next big stage is Los Angeles 2028, already in view, and it pays to arrive prepared.

In July 2026 the Italian competition authority (AGCM) closed six cases with penalties totalling more than 2.5 million euros. The companies were the fashion brand Harmont&Blaine, the supermarket groups Il Gigante, MD, Oasi and Pro7, and the gas supplier Butan Gas. The charge was the same for all of them: they built a link between their brand and the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games without being official sponsors, leading the public to believe otherwise.

Milano Cortina is behind us, but the lesson is all ahead. Los Angeles 2028 has already passed 2 billion dollars in sponsorships before opening its gates, and it will be one of the world's biggest testing grounds for the protection of Olympic rights. The trap is the same one that just triggered 2.5 million euros in fines. The time to understand it is now, not in race week.

The easy read is the headline one: opportunistic brands, fair fine. We are interested in a different read, the one belonging to people who manage sponsorships and defend their value every day.

A penalty like this is the best possible news for the brand that actually pays to be a sponsor.

Why a fine works as a confirmation

Ambush marketing only exists where there is value worth taking. Nobody builds a campaign around an event that means nothing. If six companies invested budget and creativity to stand next to the five rings without the right to, it is because that proximity is worth something. Enforcement puts a price on that value. It makes visible, in black and white, what an official contract buys and what trying to take it for free costs.

For a marketing director who has invested in an Olympic sponsorship, the ruling is proof that the investment is protected. For organisers and rights sellers, it is the demonstration that exclusivity has a value someone is willing to enforce. The fine does not only punish the ones who got it wrong. It certifies the market for the ones who played by the rules.

One rule, two levels

The mechanism is the same at every edition, and it helps to read it as a two-level architecture.

At the first level sits Rule 40, the Olympic Charter provision through which the IOC sets the principle: during the Games the protection of official sponsors comes first, and what athletes and their partners may communicate is regulated. It applies to every edition, everywhere, and it is the permanent frame of reference.

At the second level sits the enforcement, and each host country provides it through its own law. This is the level that makes the principle sanctionable. In Italy it came through Article 10 of Decree-Law 16/2020, converted into Law 31/2020, which bans so-called "parasitic activities" linked to Milano Cortina 2026 and hits them with administrative penalties. The AGCM enforces it, acting on monitoring by the Special Antitrust Unit of the Guardia di Finanza. This is the level that produced the July penalties.

At Los Angeles 2028 the principle does not change, the enforcement does. In the United States the protection of Olympic marks runs through the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, which grants the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee exclusive rights over symbols and terminology. It is a famously aggressive protection: to challenge an infringement, the Committee does not even need to prove that the public believed in the association. Same logic as Milano Cortina, different tools. A brand thinking about its communication toward the 2028 Games is already working inside this perimeter.

Where the line is crossed

The border between legitimate activation and parasitic activity is thinner than it looks, and it turns on a simple principle. A brand can talk about sport, about winter, about performance. It cannot communicate an association of its own, a "belonging" to the event.

The Harmont&Blaine case shows it well. Branding a mountain chalet is, in itself, marketing like any other. But the branding of the Chalet Tofane, right by the Olympic slopes, came together with the five rings appearing in social posts, the Games' official hashtags and a collection named "Cortina a Colori". It is that whole, a system of signals suggesting an official belonging that was not there, that the authority sanctioned.

The same dynamic plays out across the Atlantic. In the run-up to Paris 2024 the US Committee sued a well-known drinks brand over the use of terms such as "Olympic" and "Team USA" in an unlicensed campaign. The country and the statute change, the principle does not. Evoking a world is marketing. Claiming a belonging is ambush.

What a brand that is not a sponsor can do

Staying out of trouble does not mean staying invisible. The rules leave room for those who know them, and they are consistent from one edition to the next. In short, for a non-sponsor brand:

• no Olympic symbols or emblems: the five rings, the mascot, the official graphics are off-limits;


• no official names or terminology, from the name of the edition to words like "Olympic", "Team" or "road to the Games";


• no references that create a direct association with the competitions or with the host city as an event;


• campaigns already public before the protection window opens, not built to ride the event;


• no spike in advertising spend during the Games, which gives away the opportunistic hook.

For non-sponsor athletes the space exists but is narrow: a thank-you to the partner, without tying performance to the product, without endorsement, without Olympic symbols and without suggesting a link to the Games. A picture away from the Olympic spotlight, with a thank-you in the caption, remains workable. The same picture in official kit in front of a Games symbol does not.

The real move: build something of your own

This whole list of prohibitions leads to a single strategic conclusion. The best defence against ambush marketing is not dodging the rules by a hair. It is not needing to.

A brand that builds an asset of its own, a piece of content, an experience, a story that is its and no one else's, has nothing to steal from an event and nothing it can be challenged for. Think of what Nike did around London 2012, when it was not an official sponsor of the Games. Without using a single Olympic symbol or the word "Olympic", it shot the "Find Your Greatness" campaign in every other place in the world named London, and told the story of everyday athletes instead of champions. Entirely legitimate, and in the end more watched and more talked about than the official sponsor's campaign. The right question, when you work around a major sporting event you do not sponsor, is not "how do I hook onto the Games". It is "what do I build of my own, that no one can accuse me of tying to the event unlawfully".

This is where the game is won, and it is won early. Communication around an event has to be designed months ahead, not in race week, and managed afterwards too, while the protection window is still open and the temptation to celebrate is strongest. With Los Angeles 2028 ahead, there is still time to build an idea that holds, as long as it is used now. It is an advantage for those who start early. A consultant is there for exactly this: to tell a brand where the line is before it crosses it, and to turn a constraint into a winning idea. Gold-medal material, you might say.

Let's talk

Do you need to manage your brand's communication around a major sporting event, and want to understand what you can do without risking a penalty? Are you a company or an athlete looking to create value from your communication, within the rules and with a strong idea?

Let's talk. Get in touch here. Coffee's on us.