London’s Olympic 2012 Scramble

British Olympic legend Sebastian Coe didn’t face any hurdles when he was winning gold in 1980 and 1984. He was a distance runner. But as chairman of London 2012, he faces a big one: The economy.

Steering the city’s summer games got a lot more daunting in the midst of a global financial crisis. Coe’s organization has so far sold 500 million pounds in corporate sponsorships en route to a goal of 700 million pounds (just over $1 billion U.S.). The games will cost an estimated 2 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) overall.

That means putting less effort into selling and more into bartering–the Olympic business lingo is “value in kind”–in trying to trim the cash requirements for the event.

“A lot of organizations are not cash rich, but they have excess capacity of things we need,” says Coe, in Denver, Colo., for an international sports business conference. He’ll be seeking out companies to climb aboard the sponsorship train in return for supplying athletes with food and equipment, among other needs.

One such firm on board is Crystal Digital, a Beijing-based tech firm that’s helping the committee with promotional material designs and presentations. Others figure to follow soon, though Coe says it’s too soon to announce any pending deals.

“This will be the shape of the next three years, we’ll be having lots of these conversations,” he says. That an Olympic organization would get some of its corporate lift from goods and services instead of cash isn’t new, but 29% (200 million of 700 million pounds) is an unusual challenge.

The good news: None of the sponsors that London 2012 already signed up are backing out or renegotiating deals, according to Coe. Among the major players he’s lined up are Lloyds TSB (nyse: LYG – news – people ) Bank, British Telecom, British Airways and energy firm EDF. Those are in addition to the larger overarching Olympic sponsors like Coca-Cola (nyse: KO – news – people ) and McDonald’s signed up by the IOC.