Inside Le Tour De France Village
Montpellier — July 14th, the city hosts the departure of Le Tour de France’s 12th stage. The day before, Montpellier saw the victory of Peter Sagan followed by the race’s leader Chris Froome in an incredible race scenario.
Le Tour de France is the 3rd most viewed sporting event in the world. The three week race is broadcasted in 190 countries around the world. 4500 people (organization, media, partners, services providers…) worked on the 2016 race.
Each departure city hosts the village of Le Tour de France: an area where people invited by sponsors or customers of official tour operators of the race can discover several animations, the sponsors’ area, meet cycling legends…
All major sponsors have a stand where they can invite their customers and distribute goodies. Le Tour de France’s partners are divided into 9 categories: Club partners (LCL, Carrefour, Skoda, Vittel, Krys), official partners, official suppliers, technicals partners, official supporters, media partners and institutionnal partners.
Of course, Club partners have the biggest stands in the village followed by official partners.
Several animations such as a barber shop, photocalls, official shop, local products tasting, autographed session with cycling legends such as Raymond Poulidor and Richard Virenque are available in the village. You also have a behind the scenes access to the warm-up session of the cyclists in front of their buses. A TV crew set is also present near the village from where the famous show “Village Départ” is broadcasted live.
One very famous marketing activation of Le Tour de France is the publicity caravan. Originally created in 1930 to finance the switch from brand teams to national teams, the publicity caravan is one of the greatest tradition of the competition. People are settling very early in the morning along the road to have a great spot to see the caravan and the cyclists. 35 brands are part of the caravan displayed on over 170 vehicles…and 14 million freebies are handed out!
After each cyclist comes on the podium before the departure (which allows the crowd to see all the different athletes), they make their way to the departure area where the start of the stage is set by the race director with the four leading jersey holders at the head of the peloton.
It was a dream for me to be able to see a stage of Le Tour de France as I recall each summer watching the race.
The 12th stage was a memorable one as we saw the yellow jersey holder run without his bike during the ascension of the Mount Ventoux.
About the author:
Hugo, living in Paris (France), is a sport business enthusiast, an International ambassador for CSBN and a Msc International Strategy & Influence candidate @Skema Business School.
Join the CSBN newsletter to get the latest updates and stories from the Canadian sport business industry.
