– Norway is out.
The Norwegian Ski Federation’s message was succinct when its board meeting ended on Tuesday evening. Until last night, Norway was one of the two applicants for the FIS Games mega event planned by the International Ski Federation FIS, which the umbrella organization would like to organize for the first time in 2028.
After Tuesday, there will be only one applicant left. Marketing Manager of the Swiss Ski Association Diego Züger confirmed to Urheilu that Switzerland is still involved in the application process. At least for now.
– We are still involved in the application process, but we have not decided whether we will continue the application or not. We need to analyze more closely whether we can make the Games happen. The goal is to clarify the matter in the next few weeks, Züger said by phone.
What the heck is the FIS Games?
The FIS Games is the Swedish-English billionaire of the president of the International Ski Federation by Johan Eliasch the idea of the historically large meeting times of winter sports.
The event would include familiar FIS sports such as alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, snowboarding and freestyle. In addition to these, para-athletes should compete at least in skiing and snowboarding. In addition to traditional skiing, the games would probably also feature lesser-known sports such as free skiing, speed skiing and telemark skiing.
– There are still many things to be clarified. One of them is which sports are included in the games, Züger said.
The FIS Games first came to the fore in 2022, when Eliasch was elected president of the FIS for a four-year term. Eliasch announced that the FIS Games, held every four years, would start in 2024.
However, Eliasch had to quickly backtrack on his plan because the project did not take off – and there has been no change in the matter since.
According to several international insider sources interviewed by Urheilu together with the Norwegian and Swedish broadcasting companies NRK and SVT, the main reason for the weak interest is money.
Where does the money come from?
According to several sources, FIS has not been able to provide enough concrete details about the FIS Games organizing agreement. At the core of the organizing agreement is a sum of money related to media rights, which is a significant part of the organizing budget of the Games.
When the World Championships of Nordic skiing were held in Lahti in 2017, the budget of the Finnish Ski Federation was 20 million euros. FIS provided the Ski Federation with eight million euros in organizing money, which therefore covered 40 percent of the budget.
According to sources, FIS had time to reveal to the Norwegian and Swiss federations in the FIS Games application process that the organization fee from the FIS Games could be around 90 million euros. About two-thirds of the amount would come from media rights related to television and the rest from marketing and ticket sales. However, FIS has not given any guarantees about this.
The amount is very high when you take into account the income received by FIS from the World Championships in alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, snowboarding and freestyle. From FIS’s most recent accounts for the World Cup years – i.e. for the years 2019 and 2021 – it appears that the World Cup generated a total of 64 million euros for FIS in both years.
– The financial risk is too great. There are many good opportunities associated with the FIS Games, but there are still too many ambiguities, the president of the Norwegian Ski Association Tove Moe Dyrhaug messaged the Nordic broadcasting companies on Tuesday evening.
Dyrhaug did not open the sums. Züger, the marketing manager of the Swiss federation, also refused to comment on the organizing money connected to the FIS Games.
An internationally high-ranking insider source interviewed by Urheilu assessed the FIS Games equation as difficult and already exceptional from its starting points.
– In multi-sport events, such as the European summer sports championships, the biggest reason has been the visibility for the smallest sports. All participating sports have accepted that this is the ultimate purpose of the event. It is also generally accepted that such gatherings organized for the first time are not great financial successes. FIS, on the other hand, starts from a completely different assumption, an insider estimates.
Does the FIS management have a mandate?
The source emphasized that the estimate flashed by FIS about the most significant, i.e. television-related compensation of around 55 million euros, is grossly exaggerated.
– It has about 30 million air, the source estimated and questioned Eliasch’s mandate to organize the event at any price.
According to the financial statements, the value of FIS’s assets has fluctuated from year to year on both sides of 150 million euros.
– If the answer is that FIS has money, what mandate does FIS have to promise sums of this size? Does the FIS board support this? the source asked.
Eliasch has succeeded in angering the major ski countries during his presidency. Several international insider sources estimate that Eliasch would not get a majority if the FIS board were to vote now on the financing of the FIS Games.
Eliasch has forcefully pushed through reforms, the most significant of which is the centralized media contract. At the end of 2022, the eight major European skiing countries formed an alliance called Snowflake, because they did not digest Eliasch’s ways of doing things.
Compared to a centralized media contract, FIS Games has been a trivial matter, but an expensive one when realized.
Valti passed to Switzerland
Sources interviewed by Urheilu estimate that Norway’s withdrawal from the 2028 FIS Games bid is a big loss for Eliasch. Under Eliasch’s leadership, FIS has been publicly at loggerheads with the Swiss Ski Federation, the only remaining candidate for the FIS Games.
The rift between the FIS and Switzerland has related to the 2027 Alpine Skiing World Championships, which the FIS chose to host in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, in May 2022.
The parties accuse each other of giving false statements and broken promises in connection with the race search. FIS threatens to take the games away from Crans-Montana.
During Eliasch’s reign, World Cup organizing agreements have not been signed in the old model, where the agreement was locked when the application process ended.
In the middle of the FIS’s ongoing power struggle, the organizing agreement is still unsigned for two of the 2027 World Championships, the Crans-Montana Alpine Games and the Nordic skiing competitions in Falun, Sweden.
Alpine skiing is by far the most financially valuable sport of FIS, which is Eliasch’s favorite sport and in which he has done business throughout the 2000s.
After Tuesday’s twist, Switzerland has thus become the most important partner in the two most significant things for Eliasch, the 2027 Alpine Skiing World Championships and the 2028 FIS Games.
Insiders described Switzerland’s changed negotiating position as delicious, but Züger, the marketing manager of the cuckoo country’s skiing association, took a moderate view of the turn.
– We are sure that the Alpine Skiing World Cup will be held in Crans-Montana.
– As far as the FIS Games is concerned, the game is clear: after Norway withdraws, we are the only remaining option, Züger was content to state.