Yesterday, Friday 10 April 2009, the French sports newspaper L'Equipe celebrated its 20,000th number.

L'Equipe's history

After its first number which was published on 16 October 1900 under the name L'Auto-Vélo (in answer to the Le Vélo newspaper), the newspaper changed its name to L'Auto in 1903 after legal proceedings instituded by Le Vélo: L'Auto-Vélo could no longer use the word "Vélo" in its titel.

In the same year the newspaper announced the creation of the Tour de France and on 19 January it told it would be the biggest cycling race ever organised. The Tour de France was such a success that Le Vélo lost its readers and had to decide to stop its publication in 1904.

Since the L'Auto newspaper continued its publication during the occupation until 17 August 1944 the newspaper was forbidden after the war and Jacques Goddet, the newspaper's director, had to use his relations with the resistance to be allowed to continue publishing the newspaper under the new name L'Equipe.

In 1980 L'Equipe decided to start publishing a weekly supplement called L'Equipe Magazine and on 31 August 1998 the brand had its first appearance on TV under the name L'Equipe TV.

Number 20.000 of L'Equipe

Yesterday L'Equipe published its number 20.000 and to celebrate this, the brand decide to collaborate with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF).

That's why on Wednesday 8, Thursday 9 and Friday 10 April from 8.30PM till 1AM, fourty front pages which made the history of L'Equipe were projected on tower number 1 of the BNF in Paris (click here to see how the BNF towers usually look like).

This was the very first time that the BNF used the book formed towers in a commercial way and the library decided it will continue doing so.

Some of the L'Equipe front pages projected on the BNF façade
(click on the photos to see a big version of them)
The number 20,000 was a special issue with Jean-Claude Killy as its editor in chief and with 19 famous sporters contributing to it: among others there were David Douillet, Bixente Lizarazu, Marie-José Pérec and Alain Prost (photo taken during the Caisse d'Epargne cycling team presentation ; click here for the L'Equipe front page with Alain Prost).

> Click here to view all my pictures of the L'Equipe front pages projected on the BNF

A facelift for L'Equipe Magazine

According to Stratégies.fr the directeur général de SNC L'Equipe, François Morinière, announced on 8 April that L'Equipe prepares a facelift for its weekly supplement and that the new version will be published for the first time on 18 April. The magazine will be closer to the news and will also change its appearance, based on a design by Mario Garcia. In addition to that the name will change from L'Equipe Magazine to L'Equipe Mag. A 3 million euro advertising campaign will accompany this facelift. This campaign will use the slogan: Entrez dans les coulisses de l'actualité sportive (Have a look behind the scenes of sports news).

A new website for L'Equipe

L'Equipe is also working on a new version of its website and this should be online for the end of the month of May. With this new version there will be more place for video and interactive functions.

L'Equipe also recently published an application for iPhone to stimulate the use of its mobile services.
This application will raise the number of people who are in touch with the brand each month. Currently 18 million people are in touch with the brand monthly according to the latest study by Mediamétrie on brand penetration.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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