Ambush marketing, the practice whereby rivals of sporting event sponsors engage in stunts and other tactics to upstage them, is on the rise and threatening to disrupt the London 2012 Olympic Games , according to a study.

Wimbledon organisers have been confiscating heavily branded products handed out for free to queuing fans, in the latest example of an increasingly tough stance taken by event organisers to protect their relationship with sponsors. Such is the organisers' attention to detail that, in the middle of his first-round match, Andy Murray was approached by the tournament referee and told to tear the label off his bottle of water because the maker was not an official Wimbledon sponsor.