He’s been waiting for this for three years. Teddy Riner will take to the tatami of the Arena Champ-de-Mars on August 1, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, to begin the qualifiers for the judo event of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in the over-age category. 100 kilos. Double winner of the main event in Rio and London, 11 times world champion, the athlete will try to glean his third individual gold medal and undoubtedly the greatest title of his career, all in front of his audience.
If the 500,000 licensees and occasional followers of the discipline all hope to see the Guadeloupean colossus win, a company well known to the French should also have a few cold sweats as the seconds tick by on the referee’s clock . Because since September 2022, Teddy Riner has been the captain of Decathlon’s “Team Athletes”, a team made up of 33 French and international champions – regulars in the competition or novices – who will be present in Paris from next July. Among them, Romain Cannone, the gold medalist in men’s individual epee from the previous edition in Tokyo, and handball goalkeeper Vincent Gérard, also crowned with a title in the Japanese capital. In total, 21 Olympic and Paralympic disciplines are represented there.
From Decathlon equipment to co-creation
Over the last 18 months, each athlete has benefited from specific support from the northern brand. During their preparation, they were given complete Decathlon-branded equipment and some athletes even co-created their own accessories. Romain Cannone designed his suit from A to Z with the company’s engineers. In Lille, it has a laboratory for analyzing the human body where certain members of the “Team Athletes” came to undergo a battery of tests in order to imagine the athletic spike or the ping-pong racket of tomorrow.
Under the leadership of Decathlon, the team also met for seminars, so that Olympic regulars could give their best advice to newcomers. “The Olympic Games are the greatest window of visibility in terms of sport and communication. We had to show that we were not just a product seller, but above all a designer,” explains Yohann Diniz, world record holder 50 kilometer walker, who joined Decathlon after his international retirement and now leads this “Team”.
Compete with Nike and Adidas
Nearly half the world is expected to follow the Parisian edition, the 33rd in history. 33, like the number of athletes who make up the Decathlon squadron. A turning point for the company in high-level sport. Known for its accessible entry-level products, ideal for introducing people to the 80 sports it covers, the brand now sees things in a big way: it intends to tread on the feet of Nike and Adidas, the two ogres of professional sports equipment. The way is still long. In 2022, its global turnover crossed the 15 billion euros mark for the first time, three times less than the American giant and still far from the 22.5 billion euros of the German with three bands. “It’s a real growth opportunity for them,” said Guy-Noël Chatelin, partner at EY-Parthenon.
Teddy Riner in the middle of a testing session in Decathlon’s human body analysis laboratory.
© / Decathlon
To show the whole world that you are competitive, what could be better than forming partnerships with world-renowned champions? A change of culture within the almost fifty-year-old brand, which had always refused to do so. “When you associate yourself with seasoned athletes, they have to be emblematic. From a marketing point of view, it is a completely different approach from their model,” notes Guy-Noël Chatelin. The first was tennis player Gaël Monfils in 2022, who highlighted Decathlon’s Artengo brand on the clay at Roland-Garros or the Laykold at the US Open. “They made a big deal with Monfils. He has a certain aura and he is a player that spectators from all countries want to see,” adds the consultant.
On the competition side, Decathlon has been collaborating with the NBA since 2021 on a series of products sold in its 1,700 stores worldwide. The partnership was recently extended until 2029. The brand also supplies its Kipsta ball to the pitches of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, before the Europa League and the Europa Conference League from next season. “There is this awareness that in the world of sport the use of a product alone is no longer enough: we must take into account the immaterial dimension. Nadal’s racket is not the same as the “others, it has a symbolic charge. All this involves a marketing incarnation of the products, with ambassadors and sponsorship”, supports Virgile Caillet, general delegate of the Union sport & cycle, the first professional organization in the sports sector.
Less popular sports also targeted
Another major lever: naming. In 2022, the brand gave its name to the Pierre-Mauroy stadium in Lille, which has become the Decathlon Arena. More recently, the first French cycling team, AG2R La Mondiale, a regular at the Tour de France, was given the surname of the Northerner. Decathlon shouldn’t stop there. The name of world champion Antoine Griezmann is circulating to become the future ambassador of the brand, while the player is still under contract with Puma. A strategy which could prove profitable according to Benoît Heilbrunn, co-director of the Observatory “Brands, consumer imaginaries and politics” at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation: “The purely low-cost model has no future. We must the margin to sustain a business. Decathlon is in the process of abandoning its first-price model to push towards the high end, as Lidl was able to do in the past,” he points out.
The world leader in the distribution of sporting goods does not just target the most popular disciplines. In 2022, he launched an all-female trail team under his running brand Kiprun. Its members benefit from financial and material support, in addition to dedicated physical trainers and physiotherapists. “It’s a contract that allows me to make a living from my two passions. Before I worked full time, now I’m part time,” says Blandine L’Hirondel, one of the stars of the team, third in the team. ‘UTMB in 2023, the legendary mountain race, and gynecologist at the hospital in Lozère. At the start of 2024, Kiprun launched the men’s version with Thomas Cardin, double French Trail champion, as the leader.
This new strategy obviously has a cost. “You have to pay the organization, the televisions, the federations, the athletes, it’s not like a live advertising spot,” warns sports historian Thierry Terret. Sponsorship of the Losc stadium is equivalent, for example, to 6 million euros, for a five-year contract. The results of “Team Athletes 2024” at the Paris Games will therefore necessarily be closely scrutinized by the Decathlon teams. “There is still an exploratory dimension: what lessons will we learn from this? If it works, we could multiply these alliances, with other competitions,” assures Virginie Sainte-Rose, director of the Decathlon Paris 2024 partnership. In the event of sporting failure, there is no shortage of professional retraining projects within the company. “We have more than 300 different professions, we can respond to lots of desires,” promises Yohann Diniz. A future already mapped out.
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