Toyota Motor Corp. plans to terminate its top-ranked sponsorship contract with the International Olympic Committee after the upcoming Summer Games in Paris, sources close to the matter said Friday.
The world's biggest automaker will not extend the contract it signed in 2015 but does plan to continue supporting athletes and promoting sports in its own way, the sources said.
Toyota hopes to retain its contract as a top sponsor with the International Paralympic Committee, but the IOC says sponsors cannot continue with only one of the contracts, they said.
The Japanese firm became the first automaker in the world to sign a top-tier sponsor contract in 2015. How much it paid for the contract has not been disclosed, but its total spending has likely reached over 100 billion yen ($637 million), the sources said.
Some people at Toyota have been dissatisfied with how sponsorship money is handled as they believe it is not used effectively to support athletes and promote sports, according to sources close to their thinking.
Top-tier sponsors are limited to one company per industry, and currently, there are 15 such sponsors, including Coca-Cola Co. and Procter & Gamble Co. Among the sponsors from Japan are Panasonic Holdings Corp. and Bridgestone Corp.
For the Paris Games, Toyota is expected to provide over 3,000 cars, including its Mirai fuel-cell vehicle, as part of efforts to expose its green technologies to the world.
