COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—The U.S. Olympic Committee hired Rick Burton as its chief marketing officer, putting him in charge of generating revenue from corporate sponsors in an increasingly difficult and splintered market.
Among his tasks will be to find a sponsor to replace General Motors, which decided last week it would not renew its sponsorship of the USOC after the Beijing Olympics. That sponsorship was worth about $5 million a year.
Burton has 30 years of experience in the sports and entertainment industries, most recently serving as commissioner of the National Basketball League in Australia.
Under Burton, the NBL expanded to 13 teams, including teams in New Zealand and Singapore, and doubled the league’s television rights fees.
Before the NBL, Burton was executive director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center in the Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon.
