Visa extends endorsement deal of Megan Rapinoe and other Olympians until 2021

• by Paul Kennedy  @pkedit, Mar 31, 2020

One of the issues that players, teams and leagues are wrestling with is what to do about sponsorship deals that can't be fulfilled in 2020.

Visa has told the Olympic athletes it sponsors that it will extend the agreements until 2021 after the Tokyo Games were postponed until next summer.

Team Visa scheme features 96 athletes across 27 sports, including U.S. star Megan Rapinoe.

Team Visa soccer players:
Kosovare Asllani, Sweden
Lucy Bronze, Great Britain
Ellie Carpenter, Australia
Ritsu Doan, Japan
Fran Kirby, Great Britain
Kim Little, Great Britain
Nikita Parris, Great Britain
Megan Rapinoe, USA
Christine Sinclair, Canada
Shanice van de Sanden, Netherlands

“We elected to stand behind our roster of Team Visa athletes and make sure they knew affirmatively we were planning to do so and that we were going to offer to extend our relationship with them into 2021,” Chris Curtin, Visa’s chief brand and innovation marketing officer, told AP. “They’re all dealing with how do they maintain their training schedules, discipline and focus at the same time they’re dealing with what’s happening with their families and their loved ones. One thing that we wanted to do as Visa was to take one potential point of ambiguity and maybe concern off their plates, because there should be none.”