Reply #20: Colbert's fundraising as a sponsor is exceeding goals

[suffragette]

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/about-vancouver/news/newsid=39515.html

Colbert's sponsorship of the U.S. speed-skating team - which followed the bankruptcy of former team sponsor DSB Bank - was not simply a lark or a stunt. Yes, it was partially borne of a desire for the show to do something for the Olympics, but also of a genuine fondness for speed skating harboured by Colbert since he was a teenager watching the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.

"It was a time in my life - I was in high school - when I had time to watch all the Olympics. And I was very into those Games." The young Colbert, dealing with a terrible personal tragedy - the death five-and-a-half years earlier of his father and two brothers in a plane crash - was drawn to Eric Heiden, who won five gold medals at Lake Placid. Later, he followed the careers of Dan Jansen, Bonnie Blair and Joey Cheek.
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The sponsorship campaign has snowballed far beyond Colbert's wildest expectations: exceeding the fundraising goal of $300,000 by $50,000; the buy-in from his fans; and Colbert himself landing on the cover of the world's most prestigious sports magazine. "Making the cover of Sports Illustrated was thrilling, ridiculous, because you just don't do that. It just can't be done. And I just love things that are stupidly impossible but somehow happen for the character."




Well done, Stephen!




:yourock: