Sport for the disabled can be lucrative, too
The other Paralympics-only sponsor is Sainsbury’s, a British supermarket not noted for selling orthopaedic technology. Jat Sahota, Sainsbury’s head of sponsorship, offers two explanations. First, company researchers have found that mothers, who do a lot of grocery shopping, respond warmly to the Paralympic ideal of triumph over adversity. Second, in Britain the Olympics are televised by the BBC without ads. The Paralympics are shown by Channel 4, a private station, with plenty of commercial breaks. So Sainsbury’s can plug its (non-global) brand as energetically as Tatyana McFadden will pump her wheelchair down the track in pursuit of gold.
