He cut the budget by $200 million, signed new sponsors and raised money.

Steinbrenner now joins the ranks of Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys owner, who has bucked the National Football League by signing sponsors for Texas Stadium that conflict with national sponsors chosen by the league.

One example of Ripken's impact is his knack for signing corporate sponsors: billboards already grace the outfield fences of the 6,000-seat Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen, Md., where this year's Ripken World Series is being held.

To counter that, CBS tried to sign "more multi-unit sponsors," he added, so viewers would see "less clutter, more campaigns."

The team signed national sponsors like Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Chevrolet, Coors and Alltel to lengthy deals as a hoped-for financial bridge to a time when the city's and region's struggling companies are healthier.

London-based bank Standard Chartered has agreed to pay a record £81.5 million to have its logo displayed on the team's shirts for four years and the club's sales department has also signed new sponsors such as Turkish tourism.

But growing costs, such as the need to construct velodromes, have made the festival an expensive proposition for host cities, which cannot sign corporate sponsors that compete with the official sponsors of the United States Olympic team and the Summer Games.

Mr. Cloney, fearing the race would die, made a deal with the Boston lawyer Marshall Medoff that gave him exclusive rights to sign commercial sponsors for the race.

Baseball officials viewed the deal as a triumph, coming more than two years since signing other national sponsors and several months after owners vetoed a 10-year footwear and apparel deal with Nike and Reebok.

Whether the Games will have their familiarly lavish look or a bargain basement feel will depend on whether organizers meet their $1.58 billion budget as they seek to sign more second-tier corporate sponsors and shore up disappointing sales of Olympic coins.