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≡ ANNUAL REPORT ≡
World Athletics had a big year in 2024, with a sensational Olympic Games in Paris at the center, but the federation had just as good a year at the bank.
Its Annual Report covering the 2024 calendar year, released on Friday in Tokyo (JPN) ahead of the World Athletics Championships that start on Saturday, showed outstanding results:
● $99.386 million in revenue
● $78.769 million in expenses
● $20.616 million operating surplus
● $20.284 million surplus after investment income
This compares to a deficit of $16.674 million for 2023 and $17.384 million for 2022!
Importantly, revenues rose mightily thanks primarily to the International Olympic Committee payment of a share of television rights from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games of $39.572 million, all received by the end of 2024.
However, the federation’s own broadcast and sponsorship rights also increased:
● $16.667 million: broadcast rights (vs. $14.725 million in 2023)
● $13.000 million: sponsorship from $130 million/10-year guarantee
● $13.846 million: profit-share from outside sales
● $6.736 million: in-kind goods and services
● $1.300 million: Diamond League
In all, these income areas contributed $51.549 million, an increase of 11.4% on the 2023 total of $46.275 million. Interestingly, the sponsorship profit-share total of $13.846 million was nicely up from $11.063 million in 2023 and $7.977 million in 2022 (!).
There was also $8.265 million in other revenue, from certification of tracks and equipment, road race designations, reimbursements for doping-control activities in Bahrain, Kenya and Russia and pass-through in-kind goods and services to local organizers.
The key figure for the future: $59.814 million in non-Olympic revenue vs. $54.198 million, up 10.4% for the year.
In terms of spending:
● $6.981 million: World Indoors, U-20, Relays, Cross Country
● $4.271 million: Olympic Games, with $2.5 million prize money
● $2.464 million: Diamond League support
● $2.093 million: Continental Tour and Permit meet support
● $1.659 million: Other competitions and events
That’s $17.468 million related directly to meets and events. In terms of competition and event administration:
● $3.502 million: staff costs
● $3.808 million: technology
● $2.030 million: broadcasting
● $1.444 million: marketing
● $4.335 million: communications & publications
● $7.578 million: commissions for value in-kind
There were other, smaller expenses, such as $985,000 to expand the federation’s digital impact, with 1.2 million addressable fans at the end of 2024. In all, $42.877 million was spent on competition and event-related programming.
There were three other major spending areas:
● $11.927 million for grants to area and national federations
● $16.943 million for legal and compliance
● $7.021 million for general administration
The major cost in the legal and compliance category was $11.897 million for the Athletics Integrity Unit.
Sebastian Coe (GBR) received $257,500 as President and another $22,500 as a member of the federation Executive Board. He was provided with the services of an assistant in London at $191,000 for salary and office space, paid to a third-party company
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In terms of the sport itself, things were busy in 2024, according to the report:
● “A total of 7791 competitions were registered across all our six Areas in 2024 with the 6875 events in track& field, combined events and race walk and just under a thousand events in road running, cross country, mountain and trail running.”
● “Continued investment in competitions particularly the Continental Tour, which grew from 229 events in 2023 to 270 events in 2024, meant more competition and prize winning opportunities for our athletes. Almost 21,000 [20,443] athletes from 193 countries competed in Continental Tour events during the year.”
In terms of exposure, Coe explained in an opening statement that “1.2 billion people tuned in to watch athletics” at Paris 2024, and the sport benefitted from a huge increase in hours shown, 5,477 at Tokyo 2020 to 7,426 in Paris (+36%).
The World Athletics championship events outside of the Games drew a total of 132 million viewers worldwide during the year.
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