Endeavor’s On Location Wins Olympics Hospitality Contract for Paris, Milan, L.A.
On Location Experiences, the ticketing and experiences company owned by Endeavor, has won a multi-stage selection process to be the exclusive global hospitality partner of the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris (2024), Northern Italy (2026) and Los Angeles (2028).
The contract, announced Wednesday, comes following a shift in the International Olympic Committee’s approach to hospitality. For years, Olympic travel packages and VIP experiences have varied by Games and by location. A fan in New York hoping to attend the 2016 Rio Games would have purchased from a U.S. provider, while a fan in London would have had a completely different suite of options from a separate U.K. provider.
For the three Games from 2024-2028, On Location will provide a single, consistent set of hospitality options for clients around the globe, featuring a range of service levels and accommodations. They will be available to fans, Olympics corporate partners and athlete families.
Organizers for Los Angeles and Paris have been working with IOC on this policy shift since late 2019. A formal RFI (request for information) process began in May 2020. Financial details of the arrangement weren’t announced.
“We are honoured to join the International Olympic Committee in reimagining hospitality at future Olympic and Paralympic Games,” On Location President Paul Caine said in a statement. “We are committed to providing stakeholders, partners and fans around the globe with exclusive hospitality experiences that uniquely celebrate each host city.”
The new designation is a big one for On Location, which began as the NFL’s event-and-hospitality business before the league ceded control to RedBird Capital and Bruin Capital in 2015. Last January, two months before the pandemic disrupted the global live events calendar, the company was purchased by Endeavor in a deal that valued the firm at roughly $660 million. (Endeavor went public this April).
The group has hospitality relationships across college sports, golf, tennis, racing, the NCAA basketball tournament and various music events. Its biggest event remains the Super Bowl, and the NFL is still an equity partner.
The Olympics are one of the world’s most watched and most attended sporting events. Before it was postponed last year, Tokyo 2020 organizers were expecting to welcome 11,000 athletes and more than 600,000 tourists for the Summer Games. Sponsors and media companies pay billions every four years to associate themselves with the Games.
In a separate announcement, the IOC also said Wednesday that it would launch a “new, integrated approach regarding global ticket sales” in advance of the Paris 2024 Games. The current ticketing system has drawn criticism for multiple reasons over the years, most recently for its handling of refunds for the postponed 2020 Tokyo event.
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