Selling the Yellow Jersey

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Selling the Yellow Jersey Page 13

by Eric Reed


  into the business of sponsoring cycling teams and competitions. The return

  to the corporate team formula and inclusion of extra- sportifs in the mix were not the only, nor the most important, factors in the Tour’s evolution thereafter. The Tour’s traditional promotional structures — the publicity caravan,

  advertising campaigns in the pages of L’Équipe and other newspapers, and radio advertising on France’s peripheral broadcasting networks — could not

  generate the volume or style of publicity sought by cycling’s new business

  partners. After the return to the corporate team formula, the Tour organiz-

  ers embraced the broadcast media as a publicity tool and employed televi-

  sion coverage of the race to increase exponentially the promotional power

  of the event. At the same time that he resisted the entry of the extra- sportif interests into the race’s competitive framework, Jacques Goddet embraced

  the event’s role as a commercial spectacle. The Tour’s organizers continu-

  ously transformed the event’s commercial structure and logistical operations

  to maximize the promotional power of the race after the Second World War.

  4. Bureaucratization, Standard Operating Procedures,

  and State Assistance: The Tour Becomes a Modern French

  Cultural Enterprise, 1947– 1962

  In 1947, Jacques Goddet entered into a partnership with a rich investor — Le Parisien libéré, one of France’s largest daily newspapers — to ensure that the Tour had a large, steady fl ow of fi nancial capital. Subsequently, Goddet spearheaded an effort to modernize the business structure and production of the

  Tour. The event lost its artisanal qualities and took on the characteristics of a modern cultural enterprise. By the mid- 1950s, the Tour became an annual

  event that ran like clockwork.

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  c h a p t e r t h r e e

  Several factors infl uenced Goddet’s resolve to transform the Tour. First,

  the fi nancial problems experienced by the race and its organizing newspaper

  in the late 1930s continued and intensifi ed after the war. L’Équipe, like all periodicals, faced sharply rising production costs, price controls, and paper

  rationing. The price of a ton of pulp paper, upon which newspapers were

  printed, skyrocketed from 10,000 francs in 1945 to 84,297 francs in 1951. Gov-

  ernment regulations limited the maximum price of newspapers until the

  beginning of 1949 and the maximum number of pages per newspaper per

  week until 1958.82 These restrictions undermined L’Équipe’s advertising revenue and, in turn, limited funds available for the Tour. At the same time,

  the cost of staging the Tour increased steadily after 1947. The event’s budget

  ballooned from approximately fi fty million francs in 1948 to more than 150

  million francs in 1953,83 and the race lost money consistently.

  Second, Goddet resurrected the Tour with a clean slate. Henri Desgrange

  and most of the race’s prewar staff had died or retired. All of L’Auto’s Tour records had disappeared.84 Goddet had no choice but to rebuild the Tour’s

  management and logistics from the ground up. In some ways, Desgrange’s

  death opened the door for Goddet’s long overdue modernization of the Tour.

  Desgrange’s iconoclasm and groundbreaking commercial philosophy helped

  the Tour to fl ourish in its fi rst decades. Nevertheless, his overbearing personality and management style, his overarching presence as race director, and

  his deep- seated sense of the Tour as his personal domain made signifi cant

  alterations of the event’s business structure impossible.

  Finally, Goddet considered himself to be a reformer. In a retrospective

  piece written on the race’s fi ftieth anniversary in 1953, Goddet characterized the beginning of his tenure as the start of the Tour’s “overall modernization.”85 He described himself and his colleagues as “men resolutely oriented

  toward the future.” Goddet believed that his mission was to “resolidify the

  entire system of organization,” establish a new fi nancial equilibrium for the

  event, and employ emerging technologies to enhance the race’s logistics.86

  Goddet’s partnership with Le Parisien libéré was the centerpiece of the new Tour. The arrangement lessened L’Équipe’s onerous fi nancial burden considerably because the two newspapers split equally the cost of staging the Tour.87

  The partnership strengthened the commercial punch of the Tour since the

  race’s organizers could offer sponsors attractive publicity packages that in-

  cluded additional, free advertising in both newspapers.88 Undoubtedly, the

  Tour also helped both L’Équipe and Le Parisien libéré to bolster their advertising revenues. Goddet also passed on more of the Tour’s costs to the race’s

  host towns and sponsors. Between 1938 and 1949, host- town subventions grew from approximately 21 percent to more than 49 percent of the Tour’s budget.89

  t h e t o u r a n d t e l e v i s i o n

  69

  Goddet transformed the Tour’s management structure. As part of the

  terms of the agreement with Le Parisien libéré, Goddet shared the responsibility for managing the Tour with Félix Lévitan, Le Parisien libéré ’s sports editor.

  Lévitan entered journalism in the late 1920s with L’Intransigeant, the newspaper that provided the fi rst radio coverage of the Tour in 1929. During the 1930s, Lévitan worked as a print journalist and as an on- air commentator during

  the Tour and other sporting events for Radio- Cité, L’Intransigeant’s station, and for Radio- 37, Paris- Soir’s station. During the Second World War, Lévitan, who was Jewish, spent seven months in prison before joining a maquis resistance group in the Dijon region.90 Initially, Lévitan’s role was to determine

  the race’s rules, help select the riders and host towns, and act as the on- course referee. Later, Lévitan demanded a larger role and by the early 1950s emerged

  as Goddet’s de facto codirector. In 1962, Lévitan became the race codirector.

  Lévitan and Goddet approached the Tour with different, sometimes con-

  fl icting management styles and business philosophies, and their professional

  rivalry aggravated the cool personal relationship between the two. Goddet

  sought to establish long- term, amicable, loyalty- based sponsorship relation-

  ships with important businessmen, whom he referred to in his memoirs

  as “fundamental clients,” “faithful,” and “veritable associates.”91 Lévitan, by contrast, envisioned reshaping the Tour into a more effi cient moneymaking

  machine, which is one of the reasons he favored reinstituting the corporate

  team formula. Goddet often delegated signifi cant organizational authority to

  trusted colleagues at L’Équipe. Lévitan, a “man of rigorous order,” developed a “somewhat monarchical” management style in the domains of Tour organization for which he was responsible. Although he delegated some tasks to

  subordinates, Lévitan almost always reserved the right to reverse their actions and decisions.92

  Despite these stresses, both Goddet and Lévitan agreed that it was essen-

  tial to modernize the Tour’s business structures. Like other enterprises af-

  ter the Second World War, the Tour developed a technocratic management

  team to direct operations. Although journalists continued to play the most

  important roles in the event’s management organogram, many were also

  highly trained experts in key technical areas. There existed no grande école that trained people to stage bicycle races, so Goddet recruited the Tour’s top

  logistical offi cials from an even better training ground —
the French military.

  The commissaire général (chief commissioner) directed most of the Tour’s logistical arrangements in the provincial host towns, including setting up the

  fi nish line, fi nding food and lodging for the Tour’s entire entourage, and facilitating communications among local government offi cials, race organiz-

  ers, and the police. Goddet entrusted the job to two army veterans, René

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  c h a p t e r t h r e e

  Beaupuis and Elie Wermelinger. Colonel Beaupuis became the commissaire

  général in 1947. The colonel had spent the interwar years as an instructor at and director of the Joinville military school, one of the top training academies for French military offi cers.93 Elie Wermelinger, who assisted Beaupuis

  beginning in 1948 and then succeeded him as commissaire général in 1954, had served as a lieutenant in charge of supply while stationed in Brest in the late 1930s and in the Middle East during the Second World War.94 The two veterans brought their military leadership experience and extensive knowledge of

  logistics to bear on the job.

  Goddet also recruited men with extensive experience in the sports and

  entertainment business, both within and outside the cycling community.

  Goddet met Wermelinger, for example, in 1948 when the Tour visited Biar-

  ritz, where the former army offi cer served as the chief administrative offi cer of several hotels and casinos.95 Charles Joly, the Tour’s assistant director in charge of administrative affairs until 1954, also served as director of the Vélodrome d’Hiver and the Parc des Princes, Paris’s largest arena, as well as sev-

  eral other velodromes in the Paris region. Joly maintained business contacts

  with sports venues throughout France and grasped the complexities of nego-

  tiating contracts for sporting events. Joly drew up and fi nalized the contracts between the Tour and the host towns.96 To market the Tour, Goddet built a

  “publicity staff adapted to modern times” with the help of a Paris advertising

  agency.97 Jean Dewas and Max Petit served as the commercial directors of the

  Tour in addition to working at the Inter- Régeis advertising fi rm. They han-

  dled the negotiations with potential corporate sponsors prior to the competi-

  tion.98 Robert Letorey, the director of the Montlhéry automobile race track

  south of Paris, acted as the Tour’s commissaire général commercial (chief of commercial relations) and organized the publicity caravan. Goddet described

  Letorey as a “grand master of publicity.”99 Goddet selected Jean Garnault to

  be the Tour’s sécretaire général, or chief coordinating offi cer. Garnault had served since the beginning of the Second World War as Goddet’s offi ce and

  correspondence manager at L’Auto and at L’Équipe.

  The Tour’s new expert management team established well- defi ned, uni-

  form operating procedures that standardized the annual organization of the

  Tour. First, Goddet streamlined the host- town selection process by draw-

  ing up detailed guidelines and minimum requirements that potential host

  communities must meet. The Tour required approximately 1,200 beds for

  the cyclists, offi cials, and other members of the event’s entourage. Goddet

  also stipulated that each town place at the Tour’s disposal twenty telephone

  circuits (each of which could handle several conversations at once) so that

  the press could relay stories to their home offi ces quickly and effi ciently. Each

  t h e t o u r a n d t e l e v i s i o n

  71

  year, approximately sixty communities presented themselves as candidates

  to the Tour organizers, who selected approximately twenty towns to host the

  Tour.100 Finally, Goddet set a baseline minimum for the host- town subven-

  tions. All else being equal, the selection committee generally chose the candidate towns that could meet the subvention baseline and then built the race itinerary accordingly.

  Perhaps the most signifi cant changes to the Tour’s organizational strategy

  occurred at the local level. Before the Second World War, Henri Desgrange

  relied on L’Auto’s network of part- time reporters to suggest or object to host-town arrangements, but primary organizational responsibility lay with the

  welcoming committees of local boosters and enthusiasts. Under Elie Wer-

  melinger’s guidance, the Tour’s bureaucracy took over most of the logistical

  decision making. By 1953, the race received a standardized welcome in each

  town it visited. Wermelinger created a sixty- page “Guide for Use by Local

  Organizing Committees” ( Guide à l’usage des comités locaux d’organisation) that he distributed to each host town during the winter before the race.101

  Wermelinger’s guide dictated exactly how a host town must prepare for the

  arrival of the Tour. The handbook covered general topics such as who should

  participate in the local arrangements committee, how the committee should

  fi x its agenda, and what tasks had to be completed according to a strict time-

  line. The guide discussed how to coordinate preparations among local, re-

  gional, and national police authorities and how to establish a lodging plan

  for the race’s caravan. The handbook covered every facet of the Tour’s recep-

  tion, such as the exact size, shape, wording, and placement of traffi c signs

  (most of which were provided by the Parisian organizers) at the fi nish line

  and on the roads leading to the host town.102 Wermelinger’s book provided

  the exact wording of the special permissions and ordinances that the local

  mayor and the prefect of the département must issue to facilitate the Tour’s passage. The guide even specifi ed the types of fl owers and plants that must

  be placed around the stage winner’s podium and the food (a sandwich buf-

  fet that included chicken and beef cutlets) that must be served at the start /

  fi nish line. Finally, the guide laid out strict rules about how towns and local businesses could and could not advertise and promote themselves during the

  Tour’s stay.103 The Tour’s postwar staff left little decision- making responsibility to the locals or to chance.

  Wermelinger and the other Tour offi cials did not simply describe logisti-

  cal arrangements to local hosts — they oversaw them on- site. Wermelinger

  departed each spring on a three- to four- month trip, during which he visited

  each host town and directed logistical operations. The Tour’s commissaire gé-

  néral adjoint spent between two and four days in each community and fol-

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  c h a p t e r t h r e e

  lowed a strict, predetermined agenda of meetings and activities to maximize

  the effi ciency of his visit.104 During the 1950 Tour, Wermelinger estimated

  that, over the span of his 92- day voyage, he met with 50 prefects, 1,000 may-

  ors or city councilors, and 1,500 hotel owners. Wermelinger also acted as the

  Tour’s on- site booking and travel agent: he reserved a total of 9,450 hotel

  rooms for the Tour’s caravan in 1950.105

  New technologies played an important role in changing the way that the

  organizers staged the Tour in the 1950s. In 1957, the Tour created a mobile

  press room equipped with telegraphs, teletypes, facsimile machines, and

  other high- tech gear that traveled from town to town with the journalists’

  caravan and facilitated their communications with home bureaus.106 The

  Tour caravan employed cutting- edge radio liaison technology that kept the

  police, gendarme
s, the publicity caravan, medical emergency teams, and

  race organizers in constant communication while on the road. In addition,

  several short- wave radio operators on motorcycles followed the riders and

  transmitted updates to loudspeaker- equipped vehicles, which broadcast race

  updates to the hordes of roadside spectators. Finally, organizers employed a

  secret radio communication system to ensure that the state and private ra-

  dio broadcasting networks could transmit their play- by- play analysis to their home studios without interference or piracy.107

  The efforts by the Parisian organizers to disseminate the Tour’s spectacle

  to a wider audience helped host towns to generate publicity and to profi t

  from tourism in new ways. In 1952, Elie Wermelinger created the “Historical

  and Touristic Guide to the Tour de France” ( Guide historique et touristique du Tour de France), a guidebook to the regions that the race visited. Wermelinger’s annual guide resembled the Guides Michelin, the famous tourism handbooks published by the French tire manufacturer. In the Guide historique, the commissaire général included several pages of commentary on the cultural, gastronomical, and natural treasures of each host town and region

  through which the race passed, as well as anecdotes about the history of the

  Tour in the provinces. Usually, Wermelinger requested that the mayor of each

  new stage town submit a short piece on local culture and history, from which

  he fashioned the Guide historique.

  The Tour organizers also exploited the race’s growing national and inter-

  national radio audience in new ways during the 1950s. Goddet reached a new

  agreement with Louis Merlin, the director of Europe No. 1, to retransmit the

  Tour. Merlin’s Europe No. 1 was a privately operated, for- profi t enterprise

  that survived by generating large amounts of advertising revenue. Beginning

  in 1955, Merlin sponsored enormous traveling variety shows that Europe No.1

  staged in the Tour’s host towns each evening after the race’s arrival. Mer-

  t h e t o u r a n d t e l e v i s i o n

  73

  lin’s spectacles included performances by musicians, singers, orchestras, and

  dance troupes. The shows featured many of the top performers of the 1950s,

 

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