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Simone Biles broke her own record yet again on Monday, adding an 11th career Olympic medal with a silver in floor exercise to extend her lead as the most decorated U.S. gymnast in Olympic history.
Already she’s fielding questions about a potential return in 2028 for the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Biles is leaving the possibility open for now (“but I am getting really old,” the 27-year-old said Saturday.) Before that though, she’ll head on a post-Olympics tour of the U.S., attempting to break a different kind of mark with an expanded show capitalizing on a hot live events market.
The 2024 Gold Over America Tour will play 30 dates starting in September at venues ranging from LA’s Crypto.com Arena to Boston’s TD Garden.
USA Gymnastics previously mounted similar exhibition events. In 2016, the Kellogg’s Tour of Gymnastics Champions earned the organization $2.6 million in profits, according to financial statements.
But in 2018, USA Gymnastics declared bankruptcy as it overhauled leadership and faced multiple lawsuits stemming from the U.S. Olympic movement’s largest ever sexual abuse scandal. Amid the turmoil, the organization ceded tour responsibilities.
Biles stepped in.
Dating back to her decision to turn pro rather than attend college in 2015, Biles harbored dreams of leading her own touring production. She did more than headline the 2021 Gold Over America Tour (GOAT for short), weighing in on the show’s sounds, lights, videos and costumes, in addition to voicing her thoughts on the program’s casting and branding.
The 2021 tour featured only women, including Canadian Ellie Black and Frenchwoman Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos. American MyKayla Skinner, who more recently has been in a feud with current gymnasts, joined too—”I’m excited to be on Simone’s tour,” she said at the time.
Despite COVID limitations, the tour grossed $19.3 million from 182,000 tickets in 32 cities. Final profit numbers have not been made available, though in the past individual athletes were also paid for their participation, sometimes receiving bonuses based on their medal hauls. USA Gymnastics is publicly supportive of the new effort, though the organization no longer has a creative—or financial—role.
Athleta sponsored the 2021 tour as part of a larger deal that saw the Gap brand take over from Nike as Biles’ apparel sponsor that same year. Athleta would also support the annual Biles Invitational gymnastics meet that the Biles family has hosted in Texas.
The 2024 tour, once again sponsored by Athleta, will feature men’s gymnasts Paul Juda, Brody Malone, Fred Richard, and Stephen Nedoroscik. But the show will undoubtedly still be Biles’.
With nearly 12 million Instagram followers, Biles has largely transcended the typical two-weeks-every-four-years Olympic cycle of fan and sponsor attention, and now will benefit from a booming interest in live events, particularly among young people. PwC is predicting $68.7 billion in live events revenue this year, up from 2019’s pre-pandemic $66.6 billion.
“We have seen an incredible reaction to this tour since the start of the Olympics,” Concerts West SVP Mark Norman said in a statement to Sportico. His company is among the promoters for the show. “It is very exciting to see how people are embracing Simone Biles and the rest of the great Olympic athletes.”
And while other teams such as USA women’s soccer and USA women’s basketball have used post-Olympics events to profit off international success, gymnastics’ unique mix of athletic competition and spectacle lends itself particularly well to the exhibition format.
Back in 2021, Gold Over America producer Lee Marshall was already talking about turning Gold Over America into a brand that could exist in non-Olympic years, that could highlight other sports in addition to gymnastics, and that could also lend itself to live TV (the 2021 tour was briefly made available for digital on-demand viewing, including the option to chat live with Biles).
“I think that would be amazing, to [do a tour] after every Olympic cycle,” Biles said in May. “I think that would be a beautiful thing.”
Whether she makes an appearance at LA28 or not, it certainly seems like the GOAT isn’t going away.
