On Location Experiences has been named the exclusive ‘global hospitality provider’ for all summer and winter Olympic and Paralympic Games until 2028. The International Olympic Committee made the announcement on Wednesday, giving the U.S.-based company exclusive rights to the games beginning in 2024.
The awarding of the deal to a single company marks a departure from standard protocol for the Olympics, which traditionally have used local vendors across the international landscape to handle that duty.
“On Location will delivery world-class hospitality experiences for fans and Olympic stakeholders alike, with packages including tickets, travel, accommodation and unique in-venue and host city hospitality,” the IOC said. “This new solution will deliver a simplified, secure process for fans around the world to attend the Games. The centralisation of the project also contributes greatly to better oversight and, with this, to good governance.”
On Location Experiences has grown from an NFL-specific hospitality company known for its focus on the Super Bowl (due in large part to its being owned by NFL owners and therefore selected as the in-house distribution operation for tickets that were never available to the general public at anything resembling the published face value). It was acquired by Endeavor early in 2020.
Adding the Olympic deal via On Location means that Endeavor’s parent company – Silver Lake Partners – now holds significant segments of business across the live event landscape. In addition to On Location, Silverlake owns or indirectly controls companies that own UFC, Madison Square Garden Company, Learfield/IMG, The Oak View Group, and TEG, which owns Ticketek.
On Location will operate the hospitality and ticketing for the 2024 summer olympics in Paris. It will also handle the 2026 winter games in Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, and then the 2028 games in Los Angeles. The postponed 2020 Tokyo games held this summer will see limited attendance due to ongoing restrictions on international travel, and the 2022 Beijing games scheduled to begin in February are aready contracted out.
