The French national lottery, Francaise des Jeux, recently pledged .2 million to become the first sponsor of the Paris bid for the 2024 Olympics, competing with Budapest, Rome and Los Angeles. The International Olympic Committee will choose the host city in September 2017. Paris last hosted the Olympics in 1924.
Paris bid co-president Bernard Lapasset said, “We are very proud today to take part to this extraordinary campaign which is about to start thanks to the support of the first Paris 2024 sponsor. That gives us appetite and desire.” The lottery sponsorship is just the first of many that will be announced as time goes on, Lapasset said. He added the Paris bid group also may sell wristbands for $2.25 as ” just a little extra.” Last September the committee kicked off a crowd-funding project, “Je reve des Jeux” (“I dream of the Games”), which has generated $680,000 so far.
FDJ Chief Executive Officer Stephane Pallez said a special scratchoff card game promoting the bid will kick off in 2017. “If it works well, we will donate part of the game’s income to the bid. It’s not included in the $2 million and could help us make more than $2 million.”
Most of the estimated bid cost of $65 million will be raised through private funding. If Paris is selected to host the games, the infrastructure budget could reach $4.5 billion and operational costs could total $4.8 billion.
