It's 174 days til the Rio Olympics.....and the ban on you perhaps wishing an athlete #goodluck

As the excitement over Rio builds, we are reminded that it's not all about the sport....

In order to help pay the huge bills that these events run up (£12 billion for London 2012?), companies queue to become 'official sponsors' of the games.  They pay vast sums of money to be associated with the event and hope that it will be a positive marketing ploy for them.  Who could forget the BMW pavilion in the 2012 Olympic Park?  No, really.....

However, the cost of this cost is sometime hidden as the companies that pay out to help pay for the games, don't want (quite rightly) their sponsorship diluted by other companies who haven't paid for the privilege getting some freebie publicity at the time.  For example, because Adidas is a main global sponsor, any athlete hoping to rock up in P*ma or N*ke gear will not be welcomed with open arms.  And woe betide any athlete who covers up the Adidas logo on their Team GB kit......

 Seb Coe, flouting his non-Adidas trainers before the games, Olympic Torch relay, Sheffield, 2012

This is done to prevent "ambush marketing" by non-Olympic sponsors that could throw into doubt future funding for Team GB.   Effectively it means that, during the period of the games, you're unlikely to see Mo Farah advertising Qu*rn or Anthony Joshua tucking into a S*bway or anything else not on the official sponsor list.

It is a controversial area to be negotiating as some of the sponsors will have had a long-term and deep-rooted financial support of a particular athlete or athletes.

The rules issued to athletes by the British Olympic Association state: "Your personal sponsors – or any other commercial organisations – are not allowed to use your image in advertising, or any promotion on social media, during the Games period unless this has been agreed with the BOA.

"Deemed consent will not permit advertisers to create an association with the Games, Team GB and/or the Olympic movement; retweet any Team GB tweets at any time, or retweet athletes’ posts (which relate to the Games) during the Games period; and/or reference athletes’ participation in the Olympic Games, including by way of congratulatory messaging during the Games period."

It might be interesting to see how this could be enforced at a practical level.....

So - show your support for our athletes this summer, but be mindful of how you do it and when!