PARIS – Luxury giant LVMH on Monday unveiled a deal to sponsor the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris with top fashion brands Louis Vuitton and Dior, Moet Hennessy champagne and spirits labels and jeweller Chaumet, which will design medals for the event.
The group will also sponsor athletes, including French swimmer Leon Marchand, and its beauty retailer Sephora will sponsor the Olympic torch relay, LVMH said.
Terms of the deal, which was negotiated by 46-year-old Antoine Arnault, one of the five children and heirs of LVMH chairman and chief executive officer Bernard Arnault, were not revealed.
But it is expected to cost around €150 million (S$220.3 million) and involve promotions focused on the group as well as its largest fashion and champagne labels, a person close to the negotiations said in May.
Some LVMH brands have been official partners of global competitions, including watchmaker Hublot, which has been the official timekeeper of the football World Cup.
But this is the first sponsorship by the luxury conglomerate headed by 74-year-old Bernard Arnault – the world’s second wealthiest person after Tesla founder Elon Musk.
With the Olympics now only a year out, the late-stage negotiations between the Paris 2024 organising committee and the world’s biggest luxury group, which is also Europe’s most valuable company with a market capitalisation of more than €400 billion, have generated much interest in France.
On the sidelines of LVMH’s annual shareholder meeting in April, Antoine Arnault anticipated the opening ceremony, which will be staged along the River Seine and not in a stadium, could be the most-watched event in the history of the Olympics.
On Monday, he said that the deal “will contribute to heightening the appeal of France around the world”.
But the partnership may also carry risks.
The run-up to an Olympic Games can become mired in global geopolitics and controversies over domestic matters can attract scrutiny, such as China’s human rights record ahead of the Beijing Games.
A row over the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes has already cast a shadow over Paris 2024.
Closer to the hosts, months of sometimes violent street protests over a raising of the retirement age and a wave of nationwide rioting following the police killing of a teenager of North African descent have cast a spotlight on France’s volatile social climate.
The 2024 Games will take place between July 26 and Aug 12, mostly in the French capital, although some events will be held in Marseille and Tahiti island.
Other sponsors of the global sporting showpiece include Airbnb, Alibaba, Coca-Cola and Toyota.
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
