Visualizing The Gulf In Paris 2024 Ticket Prices

The 2024 Paris Olympics promise to be a spectacular event set against the backdrop of the city’s iconic landmarks. Whether it’s the Equestrian events held at the gardens of Château de Versailles, the beach volleyball stadium set up at the feet of the Eiffel Tower or the freshly-added urban sports (3x3 basketball, BMX, breaking and skateboarding) hosted at a temporary venue on Place de la Concorde – live spectators will get to enjoy the beauty of Paris on full display. That is if they were lucky enough to get tickets and/or afford them.

While the organizers of the Paris Olympics have set out to make them the “People’s Games”, the availability of affordable tickets has been a topic of discussion in the run-up to the games. While cheap €24 tickets have been available for every sport, those were limited to the early stages of competition in many cases and fans had to spend many times that to come anywhere near a medal ceremony at most events.

As Statista's Felix Richter shows in the chart below, there is a huge gulf in ticket prices for the Olympics, with the most expensive tickets for the finals in Athletics, Swimming and Basketball priced at €980, which is more than 40 times the price of the cheapest tickets available for each sport.

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At the other end of the scale, some events top out at €24, which mostly applies to outdoor events that can also be watched for free along public roads, along the Seine, or – if you happen to be in Tahiti – at the famous Teahupo’o wave.

While the eyewatering prices of some events have drawn criticism, it’s important to note that these expensive tickets make the very low starting price of tickets possible. 

According to the organizing committee, one million tickets were priced at €24, while almost half of the 10 million available tickets were priced at €50 or less.