Finally a first sponsor for Alps 2030: after the emblems and the map of the sites, the announcement on Thursday July 2 of a partnership with EDF for the next Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games brings a new breath of fresh air to the project after long months of turbulence.
“EDF becomes the official supplier of low-carbon electricity and founding partner of the Alps 2030 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games,” indicates a joint press release from the public energy company and the organizing committee for these Olympic Games (Cojop).
“We supported the organization of several major sporting events, in particular the London Games in 2012 and of course those of Paris 2024, where we helped to reduce the carbon footprint by half. Alpes 2030 is part of this continuity,” declared the group’s CEO Bernard Fontana.
The hunt for premium sponsors for Alpes 2030 was launched at the beginning of November, but the announcement of a signature with one or more financial partners – promised for several months – was delayed by a governance crisis at Cojop following a series of resignations.
No financial details of the deal known
The map of sites, which defines the places hosting the competitions, also had to be hastily reviewed in May after the refusal by the new mayor of Nice, Eric Ciotti, to install a temporary hockey rink in the city’s football stadium as planned. The organizers of Alpes 2030 have finally decided to repatriate the entire ice cream center to Lyon.
No financial details are given concerning this agreement with EDF, which inaugurates the domestic partnership program intended to fill the organizers’ coffers: the latter are counting on nearly 600 million euros in revenue between these contracts and licenses – or around half compared to Paris-2024, the Winter Games generally attracting less investment than the summer ones.
For the Paris Games, the entry ticket was estimated between 100 and 150 million euros for premium partners, namely LVMH, BPCE, Orange, EDF, Sanofi, Accor and Carrefour.
Apart from the so-called “Top” international partners constituting the highest level of sponsorship, such as Coca Cola, Airbnb, or Visa, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) lets national committees manage their own commercial programs.
