The opening ceremony of Paris Olympic 2024 will start at 11 p.m. tonight Friday, 26 July. At Paris Olympic 2024 starting today, half of the 10,500 athletes will be women; the revenue for the Olympiad that spans 2017 to 2020/21 was USD 7.6 billion; The IOC redistributes 90% of its revenue
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, July 26, 2024: Driven by the reforms of Olympic Agenda 2020, Paris 2024 will set a precedent for future editions. Paris 2024 will be the first Games planned and delivered entirely under the IOC's Olympic Agenda 2020 reforms, with 95 per cent of the venues existing or temporary. The project aligns with the goals of inclusivity, urban setting, sustainability and youth focus outlined in the reforms. By following these recommendations, Paris 2024 is putting into practice a new approach to organising the Games. The opening ceremony of Paris Olympic 2024 will start at 11 p.m. tonight Friday, 26 July.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is entirely privately funded and ever since the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 it has relied upon contributions from commercial partners in order to stage the Games and support the Olympic Movement, as per the IOC.
The IOC redistributes 90% of its revenue, meaning that every day the equivalent of over USD 4.2 million is distributed to support athletes and sports organisations at all levels around the world.
Sponsorship in various forms has supported the Olympic Movement since the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, while broadcast coverage has been the most significant factor in the promotion of the Olympic ideals and the growth of the Olympic Games worldwide.
Funding
How the IOC finances a better world through sport
The IOC is a non-profit organisation, dedicated to using the revenue generated from the Olympic Games to assist athletes and develop sport worldwide. As a result, every day the IOC distributes the equivalent of USD 4.2 million around the world to help athletes and sporting organisations.
The Olympic Games generate substantial revenues almost unparalleled across the sporting world. In total, through the sale of broadcasting and marketing rights, as well as other income streams, the revenue for the Olympiad that spans 2017 to 2020/21, covering the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 and the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, was USD 7.6 billion.
Ninety per cent distributed to sport and athlete development across the globe
Because the IOC is a non-profit organisation, 90 per cent of the revenues from the Games go straight back into sport and athlete development. In total, around USD 2.8 billion is put towards the staging of the Olympic Games, to ease the financial burden on the host cities. From Athens 2004 to Tokyo 2020 (summer editions), and from Salt Lake City 2002 to Beijing 2022 (winter editions), the IOC has increased its contribution towards the success of the Games, allocating a total of USD 1,892 million for Tokyo 2020 (including some costs of the postponement of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020) and USD 970 million for Beijing 2022. A considerable sum is also put towards the cost of staging the Youth Olympic Games every two years.
Fifty per cent of WADA’s budget comes from the IOC
As laid out in the IOC’s Olympic Agenda 2020 and its successor Olympic Agenda 2020+5, supporting athletes is at the heart of the Olympic Movement. This is done during the Olympic Games, through the whole Games-time experience for athletes, the Olympic Village, travel grants and all the support athletes receive throughout the 17 days of competition. But beyond the Games, the IOC’s funds are also used to finance the network of athletes’ commissions across the globe which promotes the empowerment of athletes and enables their voices to be heard. Protecting clean athletes is extremely important to the IOC, and therefore substantial investment is made in the anti-doping ecosystem, with 50 per cent of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s funding coming directly from the IOC, while the other 50 per cent comes from the governments of the world.
USD 590 million for Olympic Solidarity
The IOC also aims to make success at the Games achievable by everyone, and so, every Olympic cycle, a substantial portion of the profits from the Games is allocated through the National Olympic Committees directly to helping athletes and coaches from countries with the greatest financial need, as part of the Olympic Solidarity programme. This is particularly vital in the modern sporting world, in which talent and determination alone are not enough to reach the top. High-level coaching, preparation and the ability to travel to competitions are also required.
Because of this, as part of the latest Olympic Solidarity Plan – which runs from 2021 to 2024 – USD 590 million, an increase of 16 per cent on the previous 4-year plan is being spent on various world and continental programmes going, among others, towards athlete development, training of coaches and sports administrators, and Olympic values education to make the Olympic Games more accessible across the globe. Part of this money is used to fund the Olympic scholarship programmes, which provide athletes in need with a monthly training grant as well as travel subsidies to compete in Olympic qualification competitions. In addition, for athletes to progress they also need expert coaching. During 2022, 113 NOCs took advantage of 224 places on technical courses for coaches covering 33 sports, plus general conditioning and multi-sport courses. Meanwhile, 145 scholarships for coaches were allocated to 84 NOCs.
Strengthen support to athletes
Talking of people, what of the human-centred aims of Olympic Agenda, enshrined in Recommendation 18: “Strengthen support to athletes”?
Fulfilling the IOC pledge to “further invest in supporting athletes on and off the field of play”, Paris 2024 has teamed up with the French Development Agency (AFD) to launch a business incubator programme for elite athletes.
Every year, upwards of 20 athlete entrepreneurs from France and Africa, including former and current Olympians and Paralympians, receive training on how to develop business projects in areas such as social integration, the environment, gender equality, health and education.
Foster gender equality
Olympic Agenda also set out to “foster gender equality”, the aim of Recommendation 11. Ten years on from its publication, that goal will become a reality at Paris 2024, where half of the 10,500 athletes will be women. This is the first time in the history of the Games that gender parity has been achieved.
Olympic Solidarity scholarship-holders won 113 medals at Tokyo 2020
In the run-up to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, Olympic Solidarity supported over 20,000 athletes from youth to elite across various assistance programmes, in which 827 Olympic scholarship-holders representing 178 NOCs and 26 sports participated for Tokyo 2020. They won a total of 113 medals (30 gold, 36 silver and 47 bronze). This included three NOCs winning their first ever Olympic medal and three NOCs winning their first ever Olympic gold medal.
Olympic scholarships for 429 athletes from 80 NOCs for Beijing 2022
More than 8 per cent of competing athletes at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 were supported by the Olympic Scholarships for Athletes – Beijing 2022 programme. Olympic Solidarity awarded a total of 429 Olympic Scholarships to Olympic hopefuls as part of the programme. Of these 236 athletes, representing 80 NOCs, qualified for the Games, a qualification rate of 55 per cent, with ten scholarship holders going on to win medals (three gold, two silver and five bronze). Sixty-five Olympic Scholarship-holder were Opening Ceremony flagbearers.
Support for refugee athletes
In addition, following the success of the Refugee Olympic Team at Rio 2016, the IOC launched a new Refugee Athlete Support programme, which provides NOCs with resources to support a number of refugee athletes living in their countries and allow them to prepare for and compete in international competitions. This pool of refugee athletes served as a basis for the selection of the Refugee Olympic Team for Tokyo 2020, where 29 refugee athletes competed as part of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team. For Paris 2024, 53 Refugee Athlete scholarship-holders are being supported and training hard in the hope of being selected for the Games. Representing 13 sports, they are from 12 countries and live in 19 host countries.
Athletes’ Career Transition programme prioritised
But the IOC support to athletes does not end with the Games. As part of Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC pledges to support athletes beyond the competition arena, and its 2017-2020 Olympic Solidarity Plan saw the introduction of support to the NOCs to benefit fully from the Athletes’ Career Transition programme. This programme offers athletes at various stages of their careers assistance in terms of funding and career advice. In November 2017, the IOC announced the launch of Athlete365, a dedicated brand to support the world’s Olympic-level athlete community through the provision of information, advice and e-learning courses. This is provided through a centralised digital hub, and physical outreach during Games time through the Village’s Athlete365 space, as well as before and after the Games through International Federations and NOCs.
Among the recent highlights include:
Investment in athlete welfare
The IOC continues to prioritise athletes’ well-being, as evidenced by the continued expansion of its mental health programmes and the further development of initiatives to prevent, raise awareness of and respond appropriately to harassment and abuse in sports.
Recent highlights include:
The IOC has been developing programmes and initiatives to safeguard athletes from harassment and abuse in sport since 2004 and continues to offer resources to athletes and athlete representatives on safe sport and the important role they play through Athlete365. Athletes and entourage members can access tools to help identify and report cases of harassment and abuse, first-person athlete stories on the importance of the topic, free educational courses and videos, and factsheets specifically created for entourage members. The IOC has also launched the Safeguarding Officer in Sport Certificate, a pioneer course designed to help protect athletes’ safety.
In 2020, a new Olympic Solidarity programme, NOC Athletes’ Commission Activity Grant, was made available to all NOC Athletes’ Commissions to help empower athletes and contribute to the development of an effective global athletes’ representation network at national level by strengthening direct financial support for their activities.
Olympics.com promoting athletes
In May 2021, the IOC launched Olympics.com – a single, people-centric digital platform to provide engagement opportunities, deliver original content and present Olympic communications. Olympics.com created a single destination for Olympic online properties that were previously separate, including the Olympic Channel, ioc.org, and all future Games. This comprehensive source for Olympic information, news and original content has been designed to allow for improved and streamlined digital engagement opportunities for people around the world during and between each Games – with more personalised user experiences, Games-time schedules and results, fantasy games, original content and an Olympic e-commerce presence.
The Olympic Channel exists as a live section under Olympics.com. It places athletes at the heart of its programming through content inspired by the Olympic values and brings much deserved attention to Olympians and Olympic hopefully 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
