On-stage sponsorship would create a whole new problem and set of rules (and probably costs). The value of on-stage sponsorship is not advertising to the 100 att

On-stage sponsorship would create a whole new problem and set of rules (and probably costs). The value of on-stage sponsorship is not advertising to the 100 attendees, but rather that TED posts all conference videos to their main site, which is potentially hundreds of thousands of viewers. So now you've got all these TEDx events negotiating sponsorship deals (and price points) for a product (positioning on the TED site) that they don't control. So you'll see a flood of sponsorships competing for the events willing to accept the lowest sponsorship bids, which I'm guessing TED wants to avoid. But more importantly, this money is exclusively handled by the local TEDx organizers, which provides a real profit incentive to simply run a lot of events regardless of overall quality. So TED could allow on-stage sponsorships, set predetermined sponsorship rates, collect the bulk of that sponsorship money, etc... but now we're creating more rules and bureaucracy. Besides, I don't think TED proper wants to be in the business (read: hassle) of making money that way. Besides, I'm fine with TED talks not looking like NASCAR events.