Nicolas Lepeltier
The Organizing Committee of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games will present its final multi-year budget to the board of directors on Thursday. It will announce a surplus of at least €26.8 million.
“I’ve been on more difficult boards.” Fabrice Lacroix, Paris 2024’s financial director, was all smiles. On Thursday, December 12, at the presentation of its final multi-year budget, the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (COJOP) is due to announce a surplus of €26.8 million to its directors. Tony Estanguet, COJOP’s president, is proud to say that “this is a great source of satisfaction, and one of the proudest achievements of Paris 2024,” given that the goal of achieving a balanced budget was such a daunting one just a few weeks before the start of the Games.
These results enable COJOP to reduce the contribution of public funds by around €30 million. The City of Paris (for a total of €7.5 million), the Greater Paris Metropolis, the Ile-de-France Region (around €5 million each) and the French State (€12 million) had set aside guarantees for the Paralympic Games, which COJOP eventually did not activate, thanks to higher revenues.
The total revenue for Paris 2024 amounts to €4.480 trillion, while expenditure amounts to €4.453 trillion. In detail, the International Olympic Committee’s contribution – from audiovisual rights and global partners – stands at €1.228 trillion. Paris 2024 sponsors contributed €1.238 trillion. And the more than 12 million tickets sold to the general public, a record in the history of the Games, brought in €1.333 trillion for the organizer. That number rises to €1.489 trillion when including hospitality (tickets and privileged services), almost €350 million more than expected in the bid file.
A drastic budget review at the end of 2022
According to COJOP, expenditure, meanwhile, rose by 17% (18% for revenue) since September 2017 and the award of the Games to France. “This is the lowest slide for the Olympic Games in the modern era,” Lacroix boasted. A good half of the increase is due to the “inflation shock” from 2022 due to the war in Ukraine, which the finance director estimates at “between €300 and €400 million.” The remaining half is due to changes in the project. Some of these were “forced” on the organizer, such as the security arrangements, whose actual costs compared to the bid meant an additional €120 million.
Other expenses, on the other hand, are the result of Paris 2024’s choices, such as that of staging the urban sports events on Place de la Concorde, the Parc des Champions celebrations at the Trocadéro or the Olympic and Paralympic opening ceremonies in the heart of the capital. The bill for the four ceremonies totaled €154 million. “These risks were worth taking, and helped us to find partners,” said Lacroix.
