Selling the Yellow Jersey

by Eric Reed

  including band leader Tino Rossi, chanteuse Dalida, Petula Clark, and Johnny Hallyday.108 Each show transpired after dinner on a large, public stage or in

  an auditorium in the center of town and lasted more than an hour. Merlin

  transmitted the performances live throughout Western Europe on Europe

  No. 1’s powerful transmitters.109

  The French government played an important, expanding role in stag-

  ing and facilitating the race and placed more and more state resources at the

  Tour’s disposal. In 1947, the chief of the state telecommunications service de-

  clared that the mission of his offi ce during the Tour was to “facilitate the task of the French and foreign press” during the race. The service dispatched what

  L’Équipe termed a “brigade” of specialists to install more telephone and radio circuits in host towns around the itinerary.110 In 1952, the telecommunications team that followed the race included twenty- two engineers and tech-

  nicians.111 The government often granted permission to the Tour to set up

  press rooms in local post offi ces, where reporters had ready access to public

  telephone lines. The national government also took over important polic-

  ing duties. Beginning in 1952, the minister of the interior dispatched a mo-

  torcycle squad of between thirty and fi fty soldiers from the First Infantry

  Regiment of the Republican Guard, an elite military unit that escorted the

  motorcades of the French president and other high government offi cials, to

  “protect” the Tour de France.112 The First Infantry Regiment’s motorcycle

  soldiers directed traffi c and ensured the safety of the riders and race offi cials along the entire itinerary of the Tour. In addition, the Gendarmerie nationale (national police) took responsibility for placing hundreds of security offi cers along the course each day out of the hands of the Tour organizers and host-town offi cials. Finally, the state civil engineering corps ( Ministère de ponts et chaussées) employed its expertise and considerable manpower to manage and streamline logistics at the local level. For a single time trial stage of the 1958

  Tour in Châteaulin (Brittany), for example, state engineers drew up a total of

  102 large- scale maps and blueprints to be consulted by its work crews dur-

  ing the setup. The maps and drawings included descriptions of traffi c signal

  placements (seventy maps), layouts of parking areas (twenty- six drawings),

  graphic drawings of the race course and of the fi nish- line layout, and a profi le relief map of the climbs and descents along the route.113

  By the late 1950s, Goddet’s management team, with the state’s assistance,

  had transformed the Tour into a streamlined logistical event and an even

  more powerful publicity machine. Goddet avidly pursued the promotional

  opportunities created by France’s new media structure, such as the chance

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  c h a p t e r t h r e e

  to broadcast the race and publicize its sponsors throughout Europe on Louis

  Merlin’s networks. More signifi cantly, the Tour’s logistical and organizational transformation during the 1950s endowed the event with a streamlined regularity that lent itself easily to televised broadcasting. Thanks to the tremen-

  dous commercial and promotional possibilities of television, the event be-

  came a publicity clearinghouse for the hundreds of fi rms that sponsored the

  race and its stars.

  5. The Tour and New Modes of Corporate Promotion

  For corporate sponsors, the televised Tour offered the possibility of gener-

  ating unprecedented volumes of publicity. The demand by enterprises for

  publicity — both in traditional sectors like the press and in new media —

  increased signifi cantly after the war. According to a publicity trade journal, publicity spending by French businesses increased from 320 million francs

  in 1950 to 2.6 billion francs in 1962, though the amount spent on advertis-

  ing in France per capita still lagged behind other Western countries into the

  mid- 1960s.114 Despite the relative commercial underdevelopment of French

  television, potential advertisers recognized the power of the new medium

  and sought out ways to insinuate their publicity into television.

  Traditional venues of advertising — the press, radio, and the cinema —

  could not accommodate the growing demand for publicity because the au-

  diences of the three media stagnated or declined during the 1960s and early

  1970s. For example, a press industry trade journal estimated that although

  the French population grew 25 percent between 1939 and 1970, newspaper

  readership expanded only 3.2 percent.115 The television audience expanded

  rapidly in the 1960s. Sporting events like the Tour de France provided an en-

  tering wedge into the new medium for businesses hoping to generate “clan-

  destine” publicity on the commercial- free airwaves. Many fi rms purchased

  cycling teams or otherwise participated in sponsoring the race. The race or-

  ganizers took advantage of the trend and created new sponsorship opportu-

  nities. Goddet and Lévitan slightly increased the average number of teams in

  the race after the return of the corporate team formula in 1962,116 created new prizes and awards for purchase by interested sponsors, and sold the right to

  become offi cial supporters and suppliers of the event.117

  Carmaker Peugeot broke new ground when it became one of the fi rst

  French companies to exploit systematically the opportunities for “clandes-

  tine” advertising made possible by television coverage of the Tour. In 1954,

  Peugeot became the exclusive provider of vehicles to the Tour. The automo-

  bile builder supplied the cars in which race offi cials, mechanics, and team

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

  75

  managers followed the race, as well as trucks needed to transport supplies

  and equipment. Between 1954 and 1956, Peugeot also provided Tour offi cials

  sixteen specially outfi tted Model 203 automobiles. The vehicles had bicycle

  racks on the trunks and were quickly nicknamed “bathtubs” ( baignoires) because of their white color and custom, low- scooping doors that allowed for

  quick entry and exit.118 As television coverage of the race increased, so did

  the size of Peugeot’s caravan of Tour vehicles. By 1963, the Peugeot caravan

  totaled fi fty- seven vehicles, including forty cars, fi fteen trucks, and two vans.

  An unspecifi ed number of Peugeot vehicles also participated in the publicity

  caravan.119 Peugeot repaired and maintained the vehicles that it provided to

  the Tour. The publicity generated by the company’s presence in the Tour’s

  caravan easily compensated for the investment, since cameras could not help

  but transmit images of Peugeot automobiles to the French television audi-

  ence that watched the Tour. Peugeot credited television coverage of the race,

  in conjunction with traditional press and movie house advertising, with pop-

  ularizing the silhouette and disseminating the brand image of its inexpensive

  Model 203 to the French population in the 1950s and early 1960s.120 Peugeot

  remained the Tour’s exclusive provider of offi cial cars until 1989, when Italian carmaker Fiat outbid the French carmaker for the privilege.

  As the marketplace evolved, Tour organizers gradually abandoned the

  founding business precept of the event that the race served primarily to boost

  the circulation and advertising revenue of the
newspapers that organized it.

  In fact, L’Équipe faced shrinking circulation numbers throughout the early and mid- 1960s,121 which prompted Goddet to sell the newspaper and its subsidiary components (including the Tour) to his friend and Tour collabora-

  tor Émilien Amaury in 1965. In return, Amaury promised Goddet that he

  would retain complete editorial control over L’Équipe and his position as the Tour’s codirector for as long as he desired. Upon signing the deal, Amaury

  proclaimed, “Jacques, the only way you are going to leave L’Équipe is in a coffi n.”122

  The Tour served as the lynchpin of the business union of two publishing

  concerns. The fi rst was the Amaury Group, a publishing syndicate headed

  by Émilien Amaury. After the war, the Amaury Group inherited the physical

  plant of Le Petit Parisien and its associated publications. The second entity, the Société Nouvelle de Publications Sportives et Industrielles (SOPUSI), was

  a consortium of newspapers, magazines, and sporting events managed by

  Goddet. The Amaury Group purchased 70 percent of SOPUSI’s capital in

  April 1965. 123 Between 1965 and the early 1980s, the Amaury Group estab-

  lished an ever- expanding commercial empire around dozens of local and na-

  tional newspapers and periodicals, several televised sporting events, and the

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  c h a p t e r t h r e e

  French capital’s premier sports and entertainment venues. The Tour emerged

  as the crown jewel of the conglomerate.

  Thanks to the union with SOPUSI, the Amaury Group also controlled

  many of the biggest sporting events and venues in Europe. The group orga-

  nized most of the great French cycling classics, including the Tour de France,

  the Tour de l’Avenir (the amateur version of the Tour de France, created in

  1961), the Paris – Roubaix, Paris – Tours, Paris – Brest – Paris, Bordeaux – Paris, and the Grand Prix des Nations. Goddet, as the legal successor to the property

  of Henri Desgrange and L’Auto, also owned or managed several of the major arenas and fairgrounds in the Paris region, including the Parc des Princes,

  Vélodrome d’Hiver (destroyed by fi re in 1959), the Palais des Sports (built in 1960 to replace the Vélodrome d’Hiver), and the Parc des Expositions. These

  venues became parts of the Amaury Group after 1965.124 To coordinate pub-

  licity and advertising among its disparate components, the Amaury Group

  also owned and operated a full- service publicity fi rm.

  In the 1970s, Goddet, Lévitan, and Amaury placed legal ownership of the

  Amaury Group’s sports- related assets into the hands of several limited liabil-

  ity corporations ( Sociétés à responsabilité limitée, or S.A.R.L.s). In March 1972, Goddet expanded the capital base of the Société Nouvelle Palais des Sports, a

  S.A.R.L. founded in 1959 that owned Goddet’s various sports and entertain-

  ment venues, and expanded the membership of its board to include other

  executives from the Amaury Group. In July 1973, Goddet created the Société

  d’Exploitation du Tour de France, a S.A.R.L. that owned the right to organize

  the Tour de France and the other sporting events controlled by the Amaury

  Group.125 The new corporate status of the Tour facilitated its interaction with other components of the Amaury Group and the event’s sponsors. Simultaneously, the fi nancial fortunes of the Tour de France improved somewhat

  after several decades of breaking even or losing money: the Tour’s S.A.R.L.

  reported profi ts of seventeen million francs between 1974 and 1984.126

  The Tour’s long- term partnership with Crédit Lyonnais, one of France’s

  largest banks, illustrates how the race’s new business apparatus facilitated the entry of French businesses into the arena of sports sponsorship and publicity. Crédit Lyonnais formed part of a new generation of sports sponsors —

  service- sector fi rms like banks and insurance companies that in the past had been apathetic to mass publicity — that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as

  some of the most important extra- sportif benefactors of athletic competition.

  By the 1980s, companies like Crédit Lyonnais became powerful infl uences in

  France’s evolving commercial mass culture.

  Crédit Lyonnais’s fi rst timid forays into sports sponsorship in the late

  1970s yielded few measurable publicity gains and generated little enthu-

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

  77

  siasm at the bank. Prior to 1980, the bank devoted a minute portion of its

  nineteen-

  million-

  franc publicity budget to sports-

  related advertising. In

  1979, Crédit Lyonnais paid 70,000 francs to the organizers of a televised track and fi eld competition and 150,000 francs to the Renault Formula One racing

  team for the right to place the bank’s emblem on the team’s race cars. The

  manager who oversaw the bank’s sponsorship of the Renault racing team,

  Michel Lefèbvre, termed the effort a “fi asco” with few measurable benefi ts.

  Nevertheless, Lefèbvre recognized that sports sponsorship could reshape a

  company’s public image in ways that traditional press advertising could not.

  Lefèbvre raised the possibility of increasing the sports sponsorship budget to

  two million francs in 1981.127

  In 1980 and early 1981, Lefèbvre and his associates argued that Crédit Ly-

  onnais must embark on a sustained, long- term sports sponsorship campaign.

  Lefèbvre insisted that the effort would disseminate a new public image for

  Crédit Lyonnais that resonated more closely with the sensibilities of younger

  generations.128 Bernard Normand, another executive at the bank’s Paris head-

  quarters, predicted that “the 1980s will be marked by the sports wave” as more and more French men and women turned to sport to fi ll their growing leisure

  time.129 Normand explained that patronage of the arts, Crédit Lyonnais’s tra-

  ditional mode of sponsorship, reinforced the bank’s image of prestige. Sport,

  by contrast, symbolized “dynamism, movement, action in all its forms,” as

  well as “health,” “virtue,” and “ethics.” Normand pointed out that “the en-

  terprise that sponsors certain sports benefi ts from all of these positive con-

  notations” and concluded that sports sponsorship would generate for Crédit

  Lyonnais a “younger, more dynamic, more vigorous” corporate image in the

  public eye.130

  Crédit Lyonnais chose to pursue cycling sponsorship because of its pro-

  motional potential and out of the desire to undermine the successful sports-

  related sponsorship campaigns of its major competitor, the Banque Nationale

  de Paris (B.N.P.). The B.N.P. was one of the fi rst large, service- sector fi rms in France to engage in sports- related publicity. In 1973, the B.N.P. became the

  exclusive sponsor of the French Open tennis championship at Roland Garros

  stadium in Paris. Crédit Lyonnais’s Lefèbvre characterized the B.N.P.’s spon-

  sorship of the French Open as a “brilliant success.” Others also lauded the

  B.N.P.’s growing visibility in sports- related sponsorship. L’Équipe also praised B.N.P.’s sports sponsorship efforts and presented the bank with the newspaper’s annual “Most Sporting Enterprise” award in 1980. As Luc Derieux, a

  young Crédit Lyonnais executive who participated in his bank’s fi rst negotia-

  tions with the Tour de France, pointed out, “The B.N.P. had its sporting event

  [the
French Open]. . . . Crédit Lyonnais needed one to call her own.”131

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  c h a p t e r t h r e e

  A fl are- up in the Jacques Goddet- Félix Lévitan rivalry in 1980 opened the

  door for Crédit Lyonnais to embark on an ambitious, long- term advertis-

  ing campaign centered on the Tour de France. That year, the Amaury Group

  named Lévitan the director of the Société du Tour de France (STF), the Tour’s

  new organizing body. Although he and Goddet remained codirectors of the

  race, Lévitan expanded his administrative control over the event and reor-

  ganized the Tour’s fi nances, sponsorship practices, and management struc-

  ture.132 Gradually, Lévitan sought out new fi rms to replace many of the Tour’s long- term sponsors, most of which had been recruited by Goddet. In the

  mid- 1950s, Goddet had recruited the B.N.P., the bank that held his personal

  accounts, to be the Tour’s “offi cial bank.” Crédit Lyonnais executives char-

  acterized Goddet as a “fervent supporter” of the B.N.P.’s partnership with

  the Tour. Lévitan was a longtime Crédit Lyonnais customer.133 In all likeli-

  hood, Lévitan solicited Crédit Lyonnais’s sponsorship to replace the Goddet-

  recruited B.N.P. Nevertheless, Lévitan’s motivations meshed well with Crédit

  Lyonnais’s desire to undermine the B.N.P.’s publicity strategies.

  In early 1981, Lévitan and Crédit Lyonnais’s advertising gurus created an

  entirely new, season- long competition, the Crédit Lyonnais Gold Challenge

  ( Les challenges d’or du Crédit Lyonnais). The competition became an integral component of the Amaury Group’s most prestigious races. Riders won

  Gold Challenge prize money in each of the eight sanctioned races, includ-

  ing the Tour de France, and earned points toward the season’s overall Gold

  Challenge championship according to how they fi nished in those events.134

  Crédit Lyonnais agreed to sponsor the competition for three years at an ini-

  tial base cost of 600,000 francs per year.135 Through the Gold Challenge,

  Crédit Lyonnais basked in the publicity that professional cycling’s star power

  and massive media coverage generated. The contract stipulated that the STF

  organize a televised press conference at the beginning of the 1981 season that