The Paralympic Games ended yesterday with the closing ceremony, thus closing the summer Olympic page. With many DJs to get the Stade de France dancing, but always the same star for a month and a half: the Phryges. The official mascots of the Paris Games are the surprise success of the summer. If you haven’t yet succumbed to the madness that has taken over France, but you want one last souvenir of the Olympic Games, you shouldn’t wait too long.
Already because stocks are dwindling. Doudou & Compagnie, the company that makes Phryges soft toys, has sold more than a million of them. There are about 300,000 left to sell.
No need to rush, though. Sure, the Games are over, but the sale of derivative products will continue for a little while longer. The organizers intend to ride the wave of the enthusiasm that gripped the French all summer long. And then on the nostalgia of people who already feel a great void at the idea of no longer seeing the Phryge every day…
IOC to regain rights to derivative products on January 1
But all good things must come to an end. With a first date to remember for Parisians: on September 15, the megastore on the Champs-Élysées, the main physical store of the Games, will close its doors before being dismantled. So there are a few days left to take a look and take advantage of the good deals: since the end of the Olympics, promotions have multiplied on all products, including stuffed animals.
After this date, it will still be possible to buy official Olympic products, including Phryges. Either if you find them in stock at certain official retailers, such as Decathlon and Carrefour, or online on the official Games website. It is also possible to find them at clearance stores, as Noz has already put on the shelves lots of bathrobes, tea towels, etc.
But there is still a deadline for all this, since on January 1, 2025, the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, will recover all rights to use the Paris 2024 brand. And that also concerns the mascot. From that date, the brands will no longer be able to have new products delivered, but they will be able to finish selling what they have left.
For how long exactly? Until the end of the “1st quarter of 2025 for the disposal of stocks”, the Organizing Committee explains to BFM Business.
Saving the Phryges, an (almost) impossible mission
If we do the math, there are about six or seven months left before Paris 2024 merchandise disappears from store shelves for good. But the Phryges may not have said their last word. Barely had the Olympic Games ended, some voices emerged to save the red mascots, to make them, for example, the official representations of French sport.
“A mascot should be an essential asset in the strategy of a sports organization, and yet the vast majority of French sports federations do not have one,” says Bruno Schwobthaler, CEO of Licensing for Growth, a specialist in merchandising for sports organizations, on Linkedin.
If the State, sports federations or companies want to reuse the Phryges for another purpose – and thus relaunch the production of derivative products in the process – it will be necessary to negotiate with the IOC. In exchange for a royalty on the revenues generated, the Committee could grant the license for temporary or permanent commercial exploitation. But this would be unprecedented and would require very strong political, economic and, above all, popular support.
Phryges, mascot of the 2030 Winter Games?
The fact remains that France has an ace up its sleeve: the organization of the Winter Olympics in 2030. The event will arrive quickly and the French organizing committee must present its mascot in 2028. Given the craze that the Phryges aroused this summer, perhaps it could be tempted to reuse them.
“I like the idea, but that’s just my opinion,” Julie Matikhine, director of the Paris 2024 brand, told Le Figaro. “For now, we are talking to local authorities and a number of partners to see to what extent they could continue to work for a certain period of time.”
This would be a first: since the first Olympic mascot in Grenoble in 1968, there has never been a duplicate. But rarely has a country organized Summer and Winter Games in such a short space of time (six years for France, only the United States had a shorter period between Lake Placid in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984). So if the success of the Phryges stretches out over time, who knows if we will see him with a ski mask and a down jacket in the French Alps in 2030?
- RMC Sport
