Paris 2024: An Enduring Legacy

A little over three months ago, the world came together to celebrate Paris 2024. With more than 1,750 medals awarded across the Olympics and Paralympics and a record number of cheering fans in attendance, the Games were an overwhelming success.

You might assume that Paris 2024 ended with the closing ceremonies. But for Sport dans la ville and the other organizations involved in the Paris 2024 Legacy Program, the spirit of the Olympic and Paralympic Games—and our commitment to their social and environmental legacy—are alive and well in communities across France.

The Legacy Program

In the years leading up to the Summer Olympics, the organizers focused on how the Games would create lasting social and environmental impact across France.

Paris 2024 committed to making sports more accessible for kids and adults by establishing thousands of new community sports facilities across the country, promoting nationwide sports participation, and supporting organizations that use sports to improve lives. The organizers also worked to ensure the Games created economic opportunities for small- and medium-sized businesses, as well as for women and other vulnerable groups.

Eager to support these initiatives, Sport dans la ville made five commitments to the Legacy Program:

1. Create and equip 50 new sports centers in underserved communities across France
2. Build a campus in the Île-de-France region
3. Celebrate and promote the Olympics and Paralympics in the community
4. Encourage employment in underserved neighborhoods
5. Organize an exceptional event: Festival 24

Building the Legacy

Our work toward achieving these goals started immediately after we joined the Legacy Program in 2016, and we have made significant progress over the last eight years.

Create and equip 50 new sports centers

Building on our existing relationships with communities across France, we identified several key regions where new sports facilities would have the greatest impact, including the Hauts-de-France, Île-de-France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and the South and West of France. Over the last eight years, we have opened 50 new sports centers in underserved neighborhoods, bringing the total number of sites managed by our organization to 80.

The centers we have built thus far are in near-constant use and include features like soccer pitches, basketball courts, and community gathering rooms. These spaces have quickly become fixtures of their communities, ensuring that youth and adults have opportunities to play sports, enjoy the physical and mental health benefits sports offer, and connect with their neighbors.

Build a campus in the Île-de-France region

Shortly after the Olympic and Paralympic Games concluded, we dedicated our second Sport dans la ville campus, the Campus Île-de-France. Located between Aubervilliers and Pantin in the northeast suburbs of Paris, the campus embraces the connection between sports and community and builds on Paris 2024’s commitment to transforming neighborhoods in northern Paris.

The facility is easily accessible by public transportation and includes multiple soccer pitches, a covered basketball court, a track, and indoor spaces dedicated to fitness and community gatherings.

In accordance with Paris 2024’s commitment to inclusivity and economic opportunity—and our long-running goal of increasing employment and entrepreneurship among young people—the meeting rooms at Île-de-France are in regular use for our Job dans la Ville program, which helps young adults find a career path, training and employment.

Celebrate and promote the Olympics and Paralympics

Between April and July 2024, Sport dans la ville organized La Ville en Jeu, a series of 30 events across France that celebrated the values and history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

More than 10,000 youth, adults, local officials, and coaches took part in the events. Participants sampled a variety of Olympic and Paralympic events, including basketball, soccer, rugby, sailing, sport climbing, wheelchair badminton, and wheelchair handball, among others.

Across the events, participants learned about the Olympic values of excellence, respect, and friendship and the Paralympic values of determination, equality, inspiration, and courage.

Encourage employment in underserved neighborhoods

In the communities where we work, lack of access to job training and meaningful employment are significant barriers for young people. As part of our commitment to the Legacy Program, Sport dans la Ville committed to training participants for future careers and boosting local economies by connecting young people with Games-related jobs.

In the buildup to the Olympics, we organized 15 job fairs in underserved communities, helping connect young professionals with meaningful opportunities to launch and elevate their careers. Overall, more than 50 of our participants gained employment at Olympic sites.

Organize an exceptional event: Festival 24

From our earliest days as an organization, Sport dans la ville has sought to offer summer camp experiences for children. Attending a camp creates opportunities for young people to experience the world beyond their day-to-day environment, meet people from different backgrounds, and build memories that last a lifetime.

In the Olympic spirit of bringing the world together, Sport dans la Ville organized Festival 24, a 10-day gathering in July that brought together 500 young people from 36 countries. The event provided an opportunity for young people to meet and engage with their global peers, explore and learn about diverse cultures, and try a variety of Olympic and Paralympic sports.

During Festival 24, participants joined representatives from the worlds of sports, politics, and business at our United by Sports Forum, which highlighted the social impact of sports.  Participants also enjoyed cultural enrichment activities during visits to Lyon and Paris and attended the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, where they cheered from the banks of the Seine as delegations of Olympic athletes paraded past.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

As we reflect on the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games and their lasting impact, there is much to be proud of. At the global level, sports continue to have an unparalleled ability to bring people together, and few events compare to the Olympics in terms of scale, attendance, and viewership. Beyond the many incredible displays of athleticism, teamwork, and sportsmanship, Paris 2024 made significant strides toward creating a more sustainable, inclusive, and impactful Olympic Games.

Looking ahead, there is even more on the horizon. The 2026 FIFA World Cup is rapidly approaching, and we are already planning for partnerships with LA 2028, the French Alps in 2030, and Salt Lake City Utah 2034. The Paris 2024 Games set a high bar for international sporting events, and we are excited to play a part in the innovation and creativity over the next decade.

At Sport dans la Ville, we are honored to be part of the Paris 2024 Legacy Program. Through the Olympic and Paralympic Games, we saw just how supportive the global community can be, and time and time again, we saw how sports can bring people together. We are proud of the work we have done to honor our commitments to the Legacy Program, and we look forward to continuing those commitments in the years to come.