Not the biggest, not the strongest, but one of the most skilful, fastest of his generation. Withdrawn from the prosecution since June 2019, Tony Parker (38 years old, 18 seasons in the NBA) remains a man in a hurry. “His thing is punctuality. If you’re a minute late, he can crash the date,” says one of his relatives, obviously used to it. It is therefore with a good quarter of an hour in advance that we show up at the end of December for the meeting fixed on the sidelines of the jury of the Sporsora trophies, which reward each year the best initiatives of the actors of the economy of sport. .
Hoodie on the back, sneakers on the foot, the former playmaker of the San Antonio Spurs and the French team patient – or rather stampede – in his chair. Beside him, a suitcase on wheels from a famous leather goods manufacturer on which his initials are affixed. “TP” is always ready to exfiltrate. “Tony is in his private or professional life as he was in the field. He is a winner who likes things to go quickly”, summarizes Didier Domat, his lawyer and main adviser for ten years.
Dodging no questions, the businessman Tony Parker, more and more present and influential in French sport, answers cash, speaks easily and does not launch into long digressions. We get it, his time is running out. Between his role as president and owner of the Villeurbanne basketball club (Asvel), his real estate investments, his academy, his racehorses, his Villard-de-Lans ski resort, his documentaries on Netflix, his partnerships with marques, its recently set up career management consulting agency with his friend Teddy Riner, Tony Parker is now a particularly active former sportsman. “He didn’t really experience this episode of the small death of top athletes. Even when he was still a player, we could call each other in the locker room just before a match to settle details. He already had this ability to ‘switch’ from one subject to another while keeping his concentration”, remembers his lawyer, who hosts within his Parisian firm half a dozen companies set up by the NBA champion around his Infinity Nine holding company.
Adopted by the Lyon ecosystem
Because, in the business world, Tony Parker has made a lightning breakthrough. In addition to his player sponsorship contracts, estimated at around 7 million euros per year in the good old days, he quickly added branches to his galaxy. The Parker portfolio is both diverse and substantial. According to our information, the basketball player has already invested between 20 and 30 million euros of his personal fortune in France – he earned around 150 during his NBA career. “He is a dynamic investor who juggles above all between sport and real estate”, analyzes an actor in the field. “My strategy is to invest in sport, in a cross-cutting way, and to give back to France what it has given me. I started these projects early, before leaving the courts, and it is very important, because at that time people are still answering the phone, they are more receptive”, confides the main interested party, with a smirk.
His first big hit is actually a teenage bet. He and his roommate at Insep (National Institute for Sport, Expertise and Performance) Gaëtan Muller – who became his right arm at Asvel – already thought that “it would be cool to manage a club one day of French basketball”. “At the time, people laughed when I said that I wanted to play in the NBA. Same for becoming the owner of a club. So, I kept a little maxim: if you have a dream and that people don’t laugh when you talk about it, you’re not dreaming big enough,” Parker said.
So it was in 2014 that “TP” gets its hands on Asvel, the Lyon-Villeurbanne basketball club, one of the finest French winners. Although he had no connection with the region, he was quickly adopted by the Lyon ecosystem and bought a house there, his real French pied-à-terre. He then rubbed shoulders with influential business leaders and befriended two local bosses: Laurent de la Clergerie (LDLC.com) and Jean Michel Aulas (Cegid), the emblematic president of Olympique Lyonnais, met in the mid-2000s through a certain Thierry Henry during a promotional operation. Parker admires the builder side of Aulas, and between the two men “it’s not just a business relationship”, confides a close friend of the basketball player. “They are like mentors. Laurent is a humble person who shows that you can succeed without changing. Jean-Michel is a model of pugnacity and intelligence”, details Parker.
“Tony gained more weight in eight days than we did in two months”
With his new Rhone network, Parker is accelerating his rehabilitation in France, he who, if he has always kept a close eye on France, did not spend more than a month there in the year when he played in the States -United. He takes head-on the strategy of Asvel to stabilize the economic model. And, for that, he is getting closer financially to Jean-Michel Aulas by completing a cross-shareholding between the two clubs. “Since then, we have been working together, as a team. I represent OL internationally, and I returned to board last July. I played an important role in the takeover of the OL Reign women’s football franchise in Seattle”, says Parker, who even intends to move the team to Florida soon. Far from being confined to the role of interpreter, he is a facilitator and a kind of ambassador. He also opens doors in Asia, where OL already have a foothold since the Chinese fund IDG bought 20% of OL Groupe in 2016 for 100 million euros. He became the international figure of Aulas.
Therefore, it is not surprising to see the former No. 9 of the Blues gradually take on the costume of French godfather of sport business, a position long occupied by a certain … Jean-Michel Aulas. This fall, as the health crisis turned into a brutal economic crisis for football, rugby, basketball and other clubs, it was Parker who banged his fist on the table by stating in the press in early November that French sport was dying. “Without an audience, there is no business,” he always repeats. With barely 110 million euros released to help the entire sector, sport is already the poor relation of support plans, far behind the billions in aeronautics and even culture. “Just to save basketball, it already needed 23 million euros. In fact, I do not claim any role, I just want to help. As basketball depends a lot on ticketing and matchday income, I wanted to remind that with the rooms closed we will not be able to hold on”, insists the person concerned.
His rant in the media causes an electric shock. A crisis meeting is hastily set up at the Elysee Palace on November 17, where all the major players in French sport are invited by videoconference. “Tony’s speech had more weight in eight days than ours in two months”, summarizes with a little hindsight Philippe Diallo, president of the Social Council of the sports movement (Cosmos), the employers’ organization of sport. Ironically, during this interview, Tony Parker is in the United States and stays up until 4 am in front of his computer screen. The meeting begins, and it is Philippe Diallo who first takes the floor. He gives the President of the Republic an alarming inventory of the situation. Just after this panorama, Parker immediately wants to take the ball and intervene. He was then cut dry by Emmanuel Macron who told him: “It’s not worth it, Tony, President Diallo has said everything”, says a participant, for whom this presidential interception had the merit of relaxing the atmosphere. .. failing to meet many expectations. “It was however a way for the president to support Parker’s ideas”, nuances an adviser. All this little world nevertheless came out reinvigorated by the Elysian discussion and the promise of a budget extension of 400 million euros to support amateur sport.
The EuroLeague and the NBA in sight
But, with the winter, the situation gets bogged down. “Clearly, sport does not have the place it should have. We are still very worried about not being able to reopen halls and stadiums. Tony helps us as he can. He has invested his personal money in France, he is legitimate to express itself”, judge Magali Tézenas du Montcel, general delegate of Sporsora, who spent the holidays developing scenarios to convince the government to loosen the reins on the public. Listened to, respected, Parker also stumbles on the sanitary dam and the arbitrations of the Ministry of Health. But his recent activism has been disturbing, some accusing him of serving his interests. Never mind, he does not hesitate to pick up his phone to explain himself directly to those concerned. Nevertheless, the sporting horizon remains blocked. And, without an audience, Tony Parker knows his investment in basketball is in jeopardy.
However, with his partner Jean-Michel Aulas, he is accelerating on another major project: the new OL multipurpose hall. They have even just taken an important step for the construction of the future enclosure which should see the light of day in “OL Vallée”, this part of the eastern suburbs of Lyon where the club has already built its football stadium and is extending its web (hotels, medical center, laboratory…). Worth an estimated amount of 140 million euros, the future arena of 15,000 seats is the setting which is to host Asvel’s EuroLeague matches (flagship competition in Europe, close to the NBA model) from 2023. “As TV rights in basketball are very low, it is the only way for him to ensure his investment.To become a permanent member of the EuroLeague (18 clubs this season, including 11 permanent) and share the cake of 600 million euros per year, he needs a room. It’s almost done,” says a specialist. The game is even well underway, because the representatives of the European authorities have just gone to Villeurbanne to lay the foundations of a contract ensuring ten years of presence of Asvel in the EuroLeague. A major victory for President Parker.
This success, a sign of his growing influence, including outside France, could even destine him for a much broader role within the group of Jean-Michel Aulas (71), of which he appears today as the most successful successor. credible. “I’m ready to invest myself more at OL and he knows it, we talked about it together. But Jean-Michel told me that he wanted to hold the helm for another four or five years. It’s not a concern, I have a lot to learn from a group listed on the stock exchange”, admits Tony Parker calmly. And, as we must continue to dream ever bigger, “TP” would see himself, one day, buying an NBA franchise. Does anyone in the room laugh?
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