Sponsor Spotlight -- Coca-Cola Most Valuable Olympic Brand

(ATR) Coca-Cola remains the most valuable TOP Sponsor brand.

The beverage manufacturer was rated the third most valuable brand worldwide according to 2014 Global Best Brand rankings from Interbrand.

Interbrand determines the rankings through their brand valuation calculation. According to the company the valuations are determined by "[bringing] together market, brand, competitor, and financial data into a single framework."

According to the the band consultancy, Coca-Cola is worth $81.6 Billion, and is third only to Apple and Google on the list.

Apple was valued at $118.9 Billion, while Google came in at $107.4 Billion.

TOP Sponsors Coca-Cola, GE, Samsung, and McDonald’s all placed in the top 10 brand values worldwide. GE was ranked sixth, with Samsung and McDonald’s ranking seventh and ninth respectively.

In the rankings GE was valued at $45.5 Billion, Samsung $45.4 Billion, and McDonald's at $42.3 Billion.

The highest IOC supplier was Nike, which ranked twenty second, while TOP Sponsors Panasonic, $6.3 Billion, and Visa, $6 Billion, appear at sixty fourth and sixty ninth.

Procter & Gamble is not ranked, but Gillette, the only P&G brand to on the list, was ranked nineteenth.

Dow Olympic VP Retiring

Louis Vega will replace George Hamilton as the Olympic point-man for Dow.

The Midland, Mich.-based TOP sponsor announced on Tuesday that Hamilton will is retiring from Dow at the end of the year. He is a 37-year veteran of Dow. For the last four years, Hamilton was Vice President of Olympic Operations.

Vega will assume his Olympic role while remaining aschief of staff for the office of the Chairman & CEO.

"Louis will bring a fresh approach and point of view to increasing the business value of Dow’s Olympic Games partnership," said Heinz Haller, president of Dow Europe, Middle East and Africa, and executive vice president in charge of Olympic Operations. "He will build upon George’s great success with his intimate knowledge of the Company, our strategy and of our Customers."

In a statement, Dow said that as the company's Olympic leader, Vega will be responsible for engaging host cities while being the main point of contact for the IOC.

"Vega will be responsible for extracting the full business and brand value of Dow’s partnership with the Olympic Games; capturing new revenue and continuing to develop a business structure uniquely positioned to provide technologies and innovations to help improve the Olympic experience for Host Territories, athletes and fans everywhere," the statement added.

Dow is a TOP Sponsor through the 2020 Olympics.

Coca-Concerned with Transparency Report

Coca-Cola wants FIFA to practice transparency.

Amber Steele, Coke’s football sponsorship manager, spoke Thursday at the Leaders Sports Business Summit in London. She commented on the still confidential Garcia Report, which details allegations of corruption and bribery within FIFA tied to the Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022 World Cups. The 350-page report will be officially released in November.

"Anytime with the FIFA World Cup, or FIFA, there is any tainting of the event, we’re concerned about it," Steele was quoted in media reports.

"We believe FIFA will come out and say 'This is what we’re doing,' and that's what we want them to do.

"We want them to be able to tell us what's happened and how they're going to move forward. That's how we want them to be transparent."

An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Steele had called for FIFA to release the Garcia Report.

Former FIFA vice president Mohammad bin Hammam is reported to have doled out nearly $5 million to secure the bid for Qatar. FIFA said it "strongly denies" the reports.

In a previous report, Around the Rings erroneously said Coca-Cola wanted FIFA to publish the Garcia Report. ATR regrets the error and any confusion it may have caused.

Rio 2016 Starts Olympic Cloud Transition

All information technology services by the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics will exist in the cloud.

Atos presented its plan to transition all services into its cloud based computing network, called "the canopy," by the 2018 Olympics on Tuesday.

Rio 2016 will serve as the transition point where more services are offered in the cloud than in data centers on site.Atos will have buildings, the "Integration Lab" and "Technology Operations Center," on site in Rio along with another control center outside of the city.

The third control center will serve as the future home of technology operations, which will deliver the cloud services to the PyeongChang 2018 and Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Cloud services in Rio will be offered for accreditation, sport entries and qualification, workforce management and access to the volunteer portal.

Rio’s cloud services are a cooperation between Atos, Embratel, Cisco and EMC, according to a release from Atos.

"The Olympic Games is a perfect fit for cloud computing," Patrick Adiba, executive vice president of Atos, said in a statement.

"[It’s] an event that happens only once every two years, each time in a different location, and needs a huge computing infrastructure. This important transition will transform how we deliver future Games."

Written by Aaron Bauerand Ed Hula III.

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