The 2024 Paris Olympic Games were a success story for multiple stakeholders it seems, from the athletes participating to the broadcasters covering it, from the sporting officials to bookmakers offering wagering lines.
Taking place in July and August, the Olympics concluded with the US at the top of the leaderboard with 40 gold medals and 126 medals in total. The Americans were not sole victors, however, with several countries smashing records across various sports, whilst many companies and sporting authorities reported record engagement.
An Olympic feat of engagement
One of the main selling points of the Olympics is the pure range of sports on display. With the exception of some sports like football and boxing, most Olympic events do not get all year round coverage and public attention.
For sports like athletics, swimming, diving, fencing, weightlifting and countless more, the Olympics is the ultimate opportunity to reach the widest possible audience and for the athletes involved to show off their skills and years of training.
Paris 2024 was a big success in this regard, according to some sporting bodies. The International Basketball Federation (FIBA), for example, praised the Olympics as being a great fan engagement opportunity for its 3×3 basketball format.
Over 4,000 spectators attended the 3×3 basketball games at the Place de la Concorde on a daily basis, the governing body revealed. In person viewership was also replicated in television and online engagement.
A total of 7.4 million people watched the Spain vs Germany women’s final with 1,898,000 viewing the game on the Spanish free-to-air outlet La1, with market share of 17.4%. Betting engagement also grew, with global gaming firm Flutter Entertainment sharing that 63% of its total betting volume during the event was on basketball, up form 40% at Tokyo 2020.
“The presence of fans in Paris has underscored the incredible potential of 3×3 basketball,” said Andreas Zagklis, FIBA Secretary General.
“Looking ahead, we aim to build on this success, further expanding our reach and engaging new audiences worldwide. The excitement and energy at the venue are a testament to 3×3’s unique appeal, and we look forward to continued growth and innovation as we head towards Los Angeles 2028.”
Other sports found similar boosts in engagement. World Aquatics, for one, recorded 1.3 billion impressions, 631 million engagements and 609 million video views during the tournament. The body states that an extra 1.1 million fans began following its social channels during the month-long event.
For non-sporting stakeholders in the Olympics, like media outlets, the tournament also repeated dividends. Warner Bros Discovery, which covered the Olympics in much of Europe via its Eurosport channel, recorded one million minutes of streaming throughout the tournament, whilst the UK’s BBC reported a total audience of 23.9 million.
Interestingly, betting operators also reported good engagement with the games. This is noteworthy because the Olympics is not often cited as a major betting event, certainly not in the same context of tournaments like the FIFA World Cup or UEFA European Championships – the latter finishing a few weeks before Paris 2024 began.
The aforementioned Flutter, a global gaming giant and the owner of the Paddy Power, Sky Bet, Betfair and FanDuel betting brands, among many others, highlighted how the Olympics draws attention to lesser-known sports and particularly women’s sports.
The firm explained that betting on women’s games “dominated” betting in some sports, accounting for 60% of football bets and 79% of gymnastics bets. This accounted for 24% of all Olympic bets placed through FanDuel, the number one market leader in US sports betting.
FanDuel also ignited same game parlays – often branded as bet builders for UK audiences – as being key to Olympic wagering in the US. These products accounted for 55% of all bets placed on the Paris Olympics in comparison to 20% at Tokyo 2020, and the firm cited parlays as driving the surge in basketball betting.
“For two full weeks, sports, human achievement, and nail-biting competition are the biggest stories in the world providing Flutter a platform to engage customers, both new and old, in new sports and products which has a halo effect thereafter,” noted Simon O’Shea, Flutter’s Head of In-House Global Sports Trading.
Paris 2024 was a costly affair for organisers, with the total expense of organising and running the tournament coming in at just under $10bn. The rewards for the various stakeholders involved, however, seem to be worth this cost, and it showed that the Olympics as a spectacle and vehicle for engagement remains highly valuable.
