paris2024
Paris is crowdfunding part of its bid for the 2024 Olympics. Some 60,000 supporters have already donated. Pictured: French athletes and officials, including Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo (fifth from left), posed as they attended an event to launch the Paris bid to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, June 23, 2015. Reuters

A crowdfunding effort to help fund Paris' bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics is off to quick start. Just 10 days after announcing the campaign, the city had raised 217,299 euros ($244,000), French newspaper Le Monde reported, via Sports Business Daily.

The money has come in from a variety of sources. The crowdfunding site, called www.jerevedesjeux.com, reportedly "generated 3.5 million contacts on social media." The donations flooded in from nearly 60,000 supporters of the campaign who sent a text worth about 73 cents, bought a $2.25 bracelet, registered a contributor for about $22.76 or became a "major donor" by parting with $2,276.

Officials were pleased with the early results. “The campaign is born. It will now move toward the full mobilization to create a snowball effect," said France National Olympic Sport Committee President Denis Masseglia, according to Sports Business Daily.

The crowdfunding efforts has obvious utility in that it cuts away at costs that come with the Olympic bidding process. Paris is expected to spend some 60 million euros, or $67 million, on its effort. But it's also a tool employed by the organizer to build a base of support for the games. ''Je reve des Jeux," the title of the campaign, means "I dream of the Games."

The crowdfunding effort was launched last Friday at an event featuring French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and more than 150 athletes and was broadcast live across French television.

''What does France want? It wants to dream,'' said Valls Friday, according to the Associated Press. ''There is no dream more beautiful'' than the Olympics, he later added.

Paris last hosted the Olympics in 1924, a century before the games it hopes to host. The French capital's bid will compete against the efforts of Budapest, Rome, Los Angeles and Hamburg, Germany. The International Olympic Committee is expected to choose a host city in 2017.

''We need to show that France is a magnificent country and that Paris is the most beautiful city in the world," Valls said, according to the AP. "And we need to do it in a very open way, to welcome the whole world in Paris."

The crowdfunding campaign seems to indicate people are on board with the effort. As of Thursday morning, the website reported collections had continued to build, the figure coming in around 274,000 euros or $308,000.

RELATED STORIES
Germany