For more than a century, the modern Olympic Games have elevated the world’s top athletes in service of peace, diversity, and shared dignity. But the Milan Cortina Winter Games are also highlighting a less celebrated reality: The Olympics are a multibillion-dollar business — one now flirting with private equity, the profit-driven investment firms that are reshaping sports and squeezing every last dollar out of athletes and fans.
Now, as Los Angeles grapples with the economic potential — as well as financial risks — of hosting the 2028 Summer Olympics, vulture capitalists seem poised to make a play.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), the nongovernmental body that oversees the games, primarily relies on television broadcast licensing for revenue. NBCUniversal holds exclusive US broadcast rights under a multibillion-dollar long-term agreement, while the Worldwide Olympic Partner program grants global marketing rights to major corporations.
Created in 1985, the Worldwide Olympic Partner program has become a major pillar of Olympic financing, generating billions of dollars in recent cycles and now accounting for more than a third of IOC revenue between 2021 and 2024, up from 19 percent between 2013 and 2016. Between 2021 and 2024, the program generated $3 billion in revenue, according to IOC financial data, compared to $96 million in its first three years. This year, corporate sponsors included Airbnb, Deloitte, and Visa.
Still, the IOC is exploring new sources of financing to help cover the enormous costs of mounting its events, and it appears to be zeroing in on private equity. A 2022 paper commissioned by the organization argued that while private equity investment is “not cheap, and their tools are not particularly novel,” it could provide “much-needed financial resources, expertise, and excellence in execution” and help professionalize sports operations through a more “commercial mindset.”
The idea gained prominence last year during…
Auteur: Veronica Riccobene
