The day is important for the COJO Paris 2024. 592 days before the opening of the Olympic Games, its full board of directors is meeting this Monday, December 12. With, on the agenda, a subject supposed to overshadow the others: the budgetary review.
Participants should not discover anything that they do not already know. Since the end of last month, the COJO has taken the lead by announcing, during two videoconference press briefings, an increase in its budget. Etienne Thobois, the general director of the OCOG, did it first, revealing an increase of 400 million euros, or around 10%. Then Tony Estanguet continued the exercise, confirming the upward curve of the accounts, but displaying the figures more clearly.
In both cases, the briefing was held in the presence of Fabrice Lacroix, the administrative and financial director of the COJO, invited to answer more directly accounting questions. In both cases, the Parisian organizers ensured that the budget, although increasing, remained balanced, with an increase in revenues offsetting the surge in expenses. In both cases, finally, they explained that inflation was responsible for half of the increase in the budget.
This Monday afternoon, the board of directors is expected to approve a new budget now set at 4,380 billion euros. It should take note of the support from the State and communities (City and Metropolis of Greater Paris), particularly for the Paralympic Games (+71 million euros), sports equipment (12 million), the fight against doping (8 million), and the development of the Olympic routes (5 million). Consequence of this infusion of public money: the COJO will no longer be financed 97% by private revenue, as announced and repeated since 2017, but by 96%. Anecdotal, but symbolic.
The board of directors will also hear, this Monday, December 12, Tony Estanguet list the additional revenues included in full in the new version of the budget. The two main ones show three figures: 127 million euros more for the partnership, and 143 million for ticketing – a performance achieved by increasing the prices of the most popular sessions and reducing the number of free places intended in particular to the media.
Not bad. But, in both cases, these are forecasts, and must therefore be written in the conditional tense. The first real phase of ticket sales will not begin before February 15, 2023. As for the partnership component, the COJO assures that it has reached its objective of 80% of revenues at the end of 2022, and could thus push the cursor up to the 90% line. But the announcements are still to come.
At the top of the list, the COJO's next premium partner, set to take the lead in the national marketing program, with the BPCE banking group, Carrefour, EDF, Orange and Sanofi. In his report submitted this year; the Paris 2024 audit committee insisted on the importance of securing a new premium without delay. A " imperative necessity“, argued the committee, To date, he is still not in the position.
A name has been circulating for several months: LVMH. The luxury group is in negotiations with the COJO to join the first tier of the program. But the realization by a contract signed, then publicly announced, drags on.
The reason ? According to several sources, LVMH is seeking to obtain the right to activate, at least partially, its partner rights at the international level. The discussions therefore no longer only concerned the OCOG Paris 2024, but also the IOC. A three-way game where consensus is very difficult to find.
Since the creation of its TOP global sponsorship program, the IOC has in fact reserved for its members alone – 14 in number in the current composition – the right to use the Games and the Olympic rings at the global level. And this, for the entire duration of their contract with the IOC. The partners of an organizing committee can only do so at the national level.
LVMH knows this. But the French group, a global juggernaut in the luxury industry, generates more than 90% of its turnover abroad. A premium partnership with the COJO Paris 2024 would only make sense, in his eyes, as part of an international strategy, in the short or medium term.
Interviewed at the beginning of the month by FrancsJeux, Tony Estanguet recognized that only one premium partner was among the ten sponsors with which the COJO was finalizing contracts. The three-time Olympic canoe champion did not mention the name of LVMH. Not sure he can do it this Monday at the board meeting.
