Originally Posted by Raffles

They are not corporate freebies.

Basically, a few thousand people have passes which give them 'access all areas' access. They can turn up at any event unannounced and must be seated. This means that the organisers need to leave enough empty seats on the off chance that the bulk of these people turn up - which they never do.

The passes are mainly with the IOC and national federations, not sponsors.

The mistake made by the organisers is that these seats are always in one massive block which looks bad on TV when no-one shows up as they are all in a crack-house / brothel / Harrods / another event (delete as applicable).

My understanding is that sponsors, whilst they get a large allocation, must pay for all their tickets and could take them from any categories. These are also all mainly given away to the public and 'rank and file' employees. This was quite clear last night for the 100m final, where 75% of seats had gone to sponsors and Olympic family (if you believe the reports). It was quite clear that despite only 25% of seats being for general sale, 90% of people there were genuine fans as opposed to suit-wearing corporates. The main hospitality pavilion only seats 3,000 people anyway, which caps the high-end hospitality at that - and that 3,000 has to cover all events, not just the athletics.