Australian Olympic Committee records small profit despite COVID challenges and fall in sponsorship revenue

Releasing its annual report, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) has revealed a small profit of $500,000 in the 2021 financial year after the COVID-19-impaced Olympics saw a fall in revenue and significant additional costs relating to competing in Tokyo.

The AOC reported a strong year in its sponsorships with two new major partners as being critical to the profit, even while its commercial revenue of $17.6 million was down $70,000 from 2020.

Expenses included charter flights to get to the Olympics in Japan and then quarantining representatives on return to Australia.

The Annual Report stated “the complexity of tasks associated with Tokyo 2020, planning for Beijing 2022 and running other activities in the fixed timeframes of the Games, required agile planning and the capacity to respond while managing interaction with multiple stakeholders from sports, athletes and Games organisers to governments and their agencies at the highest levels.”

Explaining that Australia's success in Tokyo was a testament to the detailed planning by the AOC and member sports to meet the challenges of competing in a Games during a pandemic, Coates advised “by every measure these were a very successful Games for Australia. Our 17 gold medals equalled the previous best for a Team competing abroad (Athens 2004) while the 45 medals in total equalled Beijing 2008 as the third highest of all time. Emma McKeon's four gold and three bronze elevated her to 11 Olympic medals in her career, becoming Australia's most successful Olympian of all time.

Commenting on the AOC’s finances, Coates stated “we were fortunate to have several new sponsors sign on and all our existing partners stay with us, further strengthening our revenue base.

“The AOC maintains a strong balance sheet with $6 million in retained surpluses which will all be required to support ongoing operations in our current quad through to Paris 2024.

“The risk of a potential deficit was mitigated by strong revenue results. The major upside was via the annual distributions from the Australian Olympic Foundation (AOF), which were $8 million higher than the prior year due to a bounce back in the economy and equity markets which delivered strong returns.”

Coates was pleased to note Brisbane had secured the rights to host the 2032 Olympics, maintaining that the event would be “cost neutral”.

He went on to state “the Games will be cost neutral from an operational perspective and essential infrastructure for Queensland funded by the Queensland and Australian governments fast-tracked.

“The benefits will be quite different to Sydney. We have the runway of international events across the next decade, including the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the FIBA Women’s World Cup and potentially the 2026 Commonwealth Games and … (the) Rugby World Cup 2027 (men) and Rugby World Cup 2029 (women) plus a lasting legacy of community sporting infrastructure for the decade after the games and beyond.”

The strength of the AOC is still largely based on the $88.5 million profit from the Sydney Olympics in 2000, which Coates warned under current International Olympic Committee regulations, cannot happen with Brisbane.

Therefore, protecting that windfall from Sydney is as vital now as it has been for the last 22 years.

He added “due to changes implemented by the IOC post-2000, there will be no one-off windfall mirroring the Sydney profit-share, which provided the AOC its ongoing financial independence with the distribution of $88.48 million to the Australian Olympic Foundation at that time.”

Image: Australian swimmers launch Speedo's uniform range for the Tokyo Games (from left): Paralympians Tiffany Thomas-Kane, Col Pearse, Ellie Cole, Kiera Stephens and Brenden Hall.