L’Équipe captured new audiences during the Paris Summer Olympics

By Paula Felps

INMA

Nashville, Tennessee, United States

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With multiple major sporting events being hosted in France during 2024, the French sports newspaper L’Équipe saw an unprecedented opportunity to transform its business model and attract revenue.

During the recent INMA Webinar L’Équipe’s digital strategies after an unforgettable sporting summer, Emmanuel Alix, digital division director at L’Équipe, explained how the company successfully leveraged the opportunity.

In the summer of 2024, L’Équipe saw an unprecedented opportunity to transform its business model and attract revenue.
In the summer of 2024, L’Équipe saw an unprecedented opportunity to transform its business model and attract revenue.

The summer’s string of high-profile events began in May with the Roland Garris tennis tournament, continued with the Tour de France (which ended in Nice on July 21), and then concluded with the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, held July 26-August 11 and August 28-September 8, respectively.

Because of these notable events, Alix said the summer “was a bit crazy for us.” Preparing for that big summer took years of planning and promotion.

Paris last hosted the Olympic games in 1924, and the publisher wanted to emphasise the 100-year milestone and make the games more accessible and interesting to a broader audience, not just sports enthusiasts.

“We did a big kick-off 1,000 days before the Olympic Games, with a special issue that made the link between Paris 1924 and 2024,” Alix said. After the kick-off, he said, “We had a progressive increase in power up to the Olympic Games.”

When the Olympics were 1,000 days away,  L’Équipe published a special issue that linked the 1924 Olympic Games with the 2024 event.
When the Olympics were 1,000 days away, L’Équipe published a special issue that linked the 1924 Olympic Games with the 2024 event.

Getting to know the games

When the Olympics were 100 days away, Alix said L’Équipe published a 100-page special issue — a record number of pages for the company.

“We were convinced that the Olympic Games work if people also know the sports, know the athletes, know how to get attached to personalities, to characters,” he said. “So we had this important challenge, which was to stir things up, to make progress, to make people gradually become interested in the Olympic Games.” 

The publisher approached the content in different formats to appeal to audiences differently. These included video programmes, documentaries, and explanatory videos. 

The explanatory videos were created to “really explain what the games were, what the events were, how it worked,” he said. “We also made a programme for children and a special section for children to make them want to take an interest in the games.” 

In addition to print products, Alix said it was essential to create a digital guide that would serve as a comprehensive companion for everyone following the Olympics. This was necessary because it allowed them to showcase sports like BMX, badminton, and rowing that don’t get mainstream coverage.

Such pre-coverage was needed because audiences would understand different sporting events better once the games started and be more likely to follow them. 

“For us, the Paralympic Games were also a very important element,” Alix said, even though those games would generate a smaller audience. “But [they are] nevertheless very, very important.” 

Covering a global event 

L’Équipe focused heavily on live coverage during the Olympics, mobilising 200 journalists to provide real-time updates and in-depth analysis. The company’s digital approach included interactive elements that allowed audiences to ask questions and engage directly with reporters. 

L’Équipe focused on live coverage and its interactive elements allowed audiences to ask questions and engage directly with reporters.
L’Équipe focused on live coverage and its interactive elements allowed audiences to ask questions and engage directly with reporters.

While it usually produces about 130 stories a day for its digital platform, during the Olympics L’Équipe reporters generated nearly 200 articles a day.

“It was a great success,” Alix said, adding that for readers to love and follow a sport — and get excited by the outcomes — they need to understand it. 

“In this desire to inform and enlighten our readers — because obviously we were addressing our audience who come all year round — we reached a much larger audience than usual. And this audience, we must take it by the hand; we really have to accompany him so that he also feels welcomed and … have all the elements of understanding [the sport].” 

With so much content to consume, readers needed to find ways to navigate it all easily. This can be particularly challenging on a mobile screen, so L’Équipe focused on providing timely information that enhanced the reader experience. This included push notifications for key events and a focus on simplifying and optimising content for easy access.

“In the end, we didn’t make any major innovations during the Olympic Games,” Alix said. “I think that where the greatest complexity lies is in making things simple, accessible.”

Scoring with audiences

All the planning and additional effort paid off for L’Équipe, with readership surpassing its forecasts and expectations.

The planning and additional effort paid off for L’Équipe, with readership surpassing its forecasts and expectations.
The planning and additional effort paid off for L’Équipe, with readership surpassing its forecasts and expectations.

The sports publication’s Web site typically sees between 2.5 and 4 million unique visitors per day, but during the Olympic games, that number rose to between 4 and 5 million daily.  

Alix said the newspaper also saw “important peaks” during certain unexpected sporting events, setting traffic records during the first fight of French judo practitioner Teddy Riner:

“In the middle of the morning of the first Teddy Riner fight, there was already a major peak: several hundred thousand people arrived per second on the site and the application. So it was a challenge but generally successful,” he said.

Through planning, preparation, and teamwork, L’Équipe overcame the challenges of covering a massive global sporting event, providing readers with a positive experience: “And our readers, they gave us back by coming and appreciating everything we were able to offer them during this fortnight.”

About Paula Felps

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