The Olympic Flame burns after the lighting of the Olympic Cauldron during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)Eloy Mazon is one of the best organisers of sports days in the world. The firm he founded, 4Global, excels in working out when, how, and for how much organisers can host global sports clashes.
It’s just the events involved aren’t quite the egg-and-spoon or sack race at a local school: from its Chiswick headquarters, 4Global’s clients include the organisers of the Tokyo 2020, Rio 2016, Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympics, football’s upcoming Qatar World Cup, plus Russia and Brazil’s before it, the Commonwealth Games and various athletics World Championships.
“When a government is thinking of hosting a major sporting event, they come to us to assess if they will win the right to host the event, how much is likely to cost, will they be able to deliver the infrastructure and all the planning in the time available etc.?,” he explains. “It can be very awkward when governments come and we conclude it won’t work — but if the answer is in fact, yes, this can happen and be great, then we help them bid for the event against other cities or countries.”
4Global helps plan every element of global sports events, from what time a particular race or match will take place, to how to manage the athletes and transport, and legacy plans to try to ensure a country’s bill — for an Olympic Games this can easily hit $15 billion — goes on to work for the city and its people: “otherwise it is just a very expensive four week party,” says Mazon.
(He has his share of the fun side too, having attended “countless” major sports finals plus Olympic opening ceremonies: “my children now hate going to any sports with me, because they say I ruin it by always thinking what could be improved!”)
4Global is no longer just events: Mazon, who is Spanish-born but has lived in London for 20 years, says his firm has built up “one of the biggest databases in the world of how sport and physical activity is consumed by people”; its software help cities and governments lure unfit or sofa-loving citizens to get active.
4Global
Founded: 2002
Staff: 35
Turnover: £5 million
Headquarters: Chiswick
Previously, Mazon muses, “outcomes from sports events were mostly measured on financial returns — but now there’s more interest in social outcomes, which affect the people in the cities and are a lot more immediate. You don’t have to wait 20 years to see the impact of people being healthier.”
Mazon was working in consulting for engineer Atkins before starting 4Global in 2002. He initially set up a regeneration company, “helping cities to reinvent themselves — but I quickly realised sporting events were a way to do so very effectively.”
The firm worked on London 2012’s bid, planning and delivery.
“We felt that more could — or should — be done to maximise the impact of the games further than the regeneration of east London,” he says. “We wanted to make sure we improved the quality of the lives of people and reduce health inequalities, and realised we needed data to understand what drove inactivity.
“When you look at the obesity and type II diabetes stats, we can see a massive health problem coming our way — we need to migrate from treating conditions to prevent those that are preventable in the first place.”
4Global is currently working with the City of Manchester to help drive sports participation, as well as the City of Lima (after the Pan-American games) to tackle health inequality. It has won a £260,000 contract to work on the UK’s Euro 2028 bid.
4Global, Mazon says, has always been profitable and cash-generative, but at the end of 2021, he decided it was time to “capitalise on a moment in time of our business. We had invested a lot of time and money building the data, platform and contracts around the world as well as a great pipeline of opportunity and a very robust acquisition strategy” — so the firm listed on AIM. It now has a market cap of around £25 million. The process went “smoothly,” Mazon reports. “Now our plans can be more ambitious. We’re continuing with international expansion — we have recently opened an office in Miami and are soon to open another one in Brussels.
“We are expanding very rapidly, with operations already in the EU, Canada, South America and the Middle East.”
He — and 4Global — can expect to see a lot more sporting ceremonies in the coming years.
“The best feeling is standing in the main stadium where the opening ceremony is taking place and looking at the faces of those in the audience, and realising that you have played a part in making the emotion and happiness they are experiencing,” Mazon beams.
