THE BIG PICTURE: International Paralympic Committee reports record $26.9 million revenues for 2018

The IPC headquarters in Bonn (GER). (Photo: IPC)

Say what you will about the evils of money, the key metric for the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to continue its growth as a voice for social inclusion for those with physical disabilities is … money.

Without it, there will be no growth in activities and the 2018 Annual Report, issued last Friday (18th) showed a new record for income with € 24.14 million (~$26.86 million U.S.) during the year.

Importantly, of this total, only € 5.01 million (~$5.57 million U.S.) came from grants from the International Olympic Committee and other “extraordinary sources,: which is positive. Almost 58% of the total came from broadcast and marketing program associated with the 2018 Winter Paralympics and individual Paralympic championship events.

The most remarkable figure shown in the financial summary was the growth of IPC revenue from € 6.37 million in 2008 to € 24.14 million just 10 years later, almost four times as much!

On the expense side, the income statement showed that the IPC spent € 24.13 million (~$26.85 million U.S.), an increase of almost 11%, but this included a transfer of € 3.1 million to reserves.

The IPC’s fundraising arm, the Agitos Foundation, has now distributed €3.8 million (~$4.2 million U.S.) across 179 Paralympic sports development projects in more than 61 countries over the last five years.

Headquartered in Bonn (GER), the organization is now 30 years old and has a staff of 118.

The report noted that the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Paralympics had a cumulative worldwide broadcast audience of 2.02 billion, down just slightly from the 2.09 billion from Sochi in 2014, due in part to the unfavorable Asian time zone.

More good news for the IPC came from Tokyo, where the 2020 organizers announced that more than 390,000 applications for 2020 Paralympic tickets were received during the first lottery window of 22 August-10 September.

That’s far and away the most in history; the prior high was 116,000 in London in 2012. About 160,000 applications were accepted in whole or part, for a sale of about 600,000 total tickets. A second lottery is expected to be held early in 2020.

Tickets for the Paralympic sports events are priced from 900-7,000 yen (about $8.30 to 64.60 U.S.).