Coca-Cola was the official soft drink of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
The Games were held in Atlanta, Georgia, the hometown of The Coca-Cola Company. That location gave Coca-Cola an unusually direct connection to the event, which was staged from 19 July to 4 August 1996. The company used the Olympics in major advertising, hospitality, and promotional activities.
The 1996 Olympics marked the centennial of the modern Olympic Games and attracted athletes from more than 190 national Olympic committees. The event also featured extensive commercial branding, making official-category sponsorships highly visible to spectators and television audiences.
Readers sometimes confuse Coca-Cola's official sponsorship with Pepsi's role in other sporting events or with the broader Cola Wars. Coca-Cola had already sponsored the Olympics since 1928, so Atlanta was a later home-city chapter in an established relationship rather than the partnership's beginning.