The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is a healthy organisation with booming revenues, but needs to remain relevant to young people to continue to grow, president Jacques Rogge said yesterday.
"I believe (the state of the IOC) is very good," Rogge said in his address to the organisation's 120th session.
He said broadcasting revenues alone for the 2009-2012 four-year cycle would beat expectations by several hundred million dollars, topping $3.8 billion, an increase of 40 per cent compared with the previous cycle.
"The situation is very favourable," Rogge said.
The IOC had previously said it expected revenues of more than $3.3 billion from broadcasting rights for 2009-2012.
Rogge also said the IOC's top sponsors' programme for that period would increase compared with the current programme, which is expected to bring in $866 million.
"For Top 7 (2009-2012) we already have nine sponsors and other partners are about to be announced or signed," Rogge said.
He expects about $1.0 billion in revenues for that programme and for Top 8 (2013-2016) he sees an increase of another 10 per cent to $1.1 billion.
IOC Marketing Commission chief Gerhard Heiberg said despite the current global economic conditions sponsorship interest in the Games was great.
"London 2012 has been able to attract several sponsors," Heiberg said, naming BP as the latest addition and saying that Russia's Gazprom could join Russia's Sochi 2014 Winter Games as an energy sponsor.
The IOC's current reserves were also healthy, Rogge said, jumping to $353 million, up from $105 million in 2001.
He warned, however, that the organisation would need to attract young people who have turned to other sporting events, including such competitions as the X Games, or turned away from sport altogether.
"The IOC must communicate better with young people whose tastes are changing," he said.
The IOC, seeing the average age of Olympic Games television viewers increasing steadily, has launched the Youth Olympics, an event for 14 to 18-year-olds, to reverse the trend. The first edition will be held in Singapore in 2010.
Recent studies have also shown a decline in interest in the Beijing Games compared with the previous Olympics in Athens.