SKT to Sponsor Park Tae-hwan

The annual income of Park Tae-hwan, “the swimming whiz kid,” has increased 333 times compared to three years ago: 3.6 million won in 2004, 6 million in 2005, 12 million in 2006, and an estimated 1.2 billion won in 2007.

Park will sign a corporate-sponsorship deal with SK Telecommunications, a two-year long contract that will last until the 2009 FINA World Championships to be held in Rome, Italy. He is to receive his sponsorship-certificate at the SKT headquarter in Jung-gu, Seoul on May 31.

“Park gave hope and joy to our nation by winning the world championship, something that was considered impossible before. So, SKT has decided to sponsor Park so that he could only concentrate on training without worrying about financial issues,” said an official at SKT.

Apart from its financial support, SKT is also planning to hire him as a model for its advertisement for the 2008 Beijing Olympic season.

Last January, Park landed a three billion won sponsorship deal with Speedo, the world’s leading swimwear brand. The term of his contract with Speedo runs until the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The net income that will be falling into Park’s pocket amounts to 600 million won after excluding overseas training expenses. In other words, just the sum of the existing sponsorship money from Speedo and the upcoming income for modeling in SKT advertisements puts Park’s annual income well above 1.2 billion won.

jeon@donga.com