How to maintain a centenary event at the top of the top? The question constantly arises for the organizers of the Tour de France. Their objective, to organize more and more THE event in July and bring more and more people into the cycling hype, preferably the under 60s. A fantasy game, a Netflix series, a Panini collection and even NFTs: if summer afternoons watching grandparents’ TV remain the best source of transmission of this French passion, the Tour has not remained in its juice for all that.
The box of the Netflix series
On the model of Drive to Survive, the race is now entitled to its Netflix docu-series, At the heart of the peloton, whose first season is available since June 8. “Everyone watched the series on Formula 1 (and) each discipline wanted to have the same thing”, justified Christian Prudhomme on Europe 1. About fifty cameras followed eight teams during the 2022 edition, including the Jumbo-Visma armada and Thibaut Pinot’s Groupama-FDJ. A huge asset in terms of storytelling. “The series allows stories to be told thanks to the post-production time, to enter into the intimacy of the runners”, underlines Julien Goupil, director of partnerships and media at ASO. The opportunity to fall in love goats from Thibaut Pinot to Mélisey, tattoos from Julien Jurdie or the carelessness of Jasper “Disaster” Philipsen, capable of forgetting his helmet or his socks when setting off to ride.
“The Covid postponed the project twice, but the Netflix subject dates from 2018, he explains. Season 1 of Formula 1 was out and like everyone else, we saw the benefits. The Tour is more than 170 runners. F1 is only 20 drivers. There’s a ton of history going on for three weeks. Another approach, to reach an even wider audience? “That’s the goal: to reach people wherever they are, to expand the target and the number of people affected. This is why Steve Chainel plays it Will Buxton by explaining (sometimes excessively) the functioning of the event or the distribution of roles within a team.
So the lunches?
For the fifth year, the race also exists through Panini stickers. The very last chance to stumble upon a Pinot or a Cavendish by opening a pocket – but don’t look for world champion Remco Evenepoel, who doesn’t have his sticker. The collection quickly found its audience since it offers results comparable to those of the Top 14 collection, which has been around since 2007.
“We feel a momentum”, confirms Isabelle Fillon, marketing manager of Panini France. “Since the launch at the beginning of May, we have had better results compared to the last two editions. The enthusiasm to date is stronger than the last two years. This is good news for the rejuvenation of the Tour public, one of ASO’s objectives with this partnership.
“They wanted to expand their portfolio of derivative products and to be able to do so for a younger audience. We have a core target of children, and I think the rights holder liked it. Panini France also distributes around 20,000 albums a year to cycling schools to attract young licensees thanks to a partnership with the French cycling federation. An audience that the Tour is also trying to seduce on the second screen.
“It’s not always easy to understand the race”
“Everything we do on digital, it will look for younger people, 15-35 year olds”, supports Julien Goupil. Since 2018, nearly 150,000 players have put themselves in the shoes of a sports director on the fantasy of the event each summer. At the start of the year, the Tour also launched into the NFTs with a digital collection of 21 stages. A market increasingly invested by sports players, where ASO hopes to stimulate the commitment of followers by winning video games or access to the VIP stand on the Champs-Elysées for the final stage. “Fans are constantly looking for new experiences. Touching them more closely, involving them in the adventure of the Tour, we know that this is one of the winning recipes. »
Not that the Grande Boucle needed to dust itself off, though. France Télévisions was a hit last summer, notably recording an 8% increase in audiences among 15-34 year olds compared to the previous edition. On the other hand, Julien Goupil believes that the Tour “needed to respond to certain issues”. The brand background study carried out by ASO in 2015 highlighted that it “is not always easy to understand the race” and the strategies, where the individual and the collective are intertwined. Hence the development of an online “race center” which makes it possible to know at any time the composition of the groups and the gaps, with dispatches in several languages.
This year, as in F1, communications from most teams will be broadcast on the air. “We are not at the end of what we can do,” says Julien Goupil. “The day when you can choose your camera live on any rider in the peloton, have real-time briefings in the buses… There may also be things to do around virtual reality. It is in the DNA of the Tour to progress, to innovate, without denying what makes its history. With that, the event is stronger. What will it be like when all that remains is to put on a helmet to put yourself in the place of Christian Prudhomme during his countless dinners of July.