2024-11-12 11:52:00
MGEN reaffirms its attachment to sports through a new sports commitment program in favor of women’s sport. With “MGEN Champions Club”the mutual places the development of women’s sport at the heart of its societal commitments, thus affirming its major role in promoting sporting practice and equal opportunities in sport. From this month of November, MGEN becomes the main partner of the women’s basketball and handball leagues, two emblematic sports in France. The partnership with the Women’s Handball League (LFH) includes, for example, a series of actions aimed at making female athletes more visible, encouraging young girls to persevere in sport and giving new impetus to professional female practice. and amateur. This partnership with the Women’s Handball League will notably result in the establishment of a new trophy rewarding the goalkeeper of the month.
Thus, these partnerships, with the Women’s Handball League and the National Basketball League, aim to offer female athletes increased visibility and encourage young girls to persevere in their sporting practice. An ambassador program will also complement this new program to embody the values of team and women’s sport, at the professional or amateur level. Interview with Fabrice Heyriès, general director of MGEN.
Bruno Cammalleri: what is your strategy through the launch of this “MGEN Champions Club”?
Fabrice Heyries : MGEN has been involved in the sporting field for a long time. This commitment mostly involved supporting a few high-level athletes, in particular Martin Fourcade and Marie-José Perec. After internal reflection, we chose to continue to have a sports engagement strategy, but by changing the way we go about it.
Bruno Cammalleri: that is to say?
Fabrice Heyries : we are a mutual insurance company which insures a large number of people in France, and we have a large majority of women in our public of policyholders, almost 70%. We insure many civil servants, teachers and retirees, with an over-representation of women in these socio-professional categories. However, as I have just clarified, we want to continue to focus on sport because it is a very unifying ecosystem that mobilizes and excites. We had to continue this commitment in a way that rhymes with what we are, and what we are is an insurer that insures many women. Rather than focusing on a few high-level champions, we will now support women’s team sport.
We therefore focused more on women’s team sports. We prefer team sports to individual sports in the message that this conveys, and women’s sport. With our commitment to sport, we have always talked about healthy sport because sport is beneficial for health, in the short, medium and long term. Unfortunately, we have noticed that many women have stopped practicing sports. The practice of sport among women is significantly lower than among men. Our idea is therefore quite simply to try to encourage this practice and bring visibility to these sports. This practice allows the person to develop their autonomy, to flourish and to have better health.
Bruno Cammalleri: why this choice of handball and basketball, and these partnerships with the Women’s Handball League and the National Basketball League?
Fabrice Heyries : we had 7 or 8 different possibilities, and we crossed paths between the sports which have the best visibility in France, which are those which are looking for partnerships and which do not already have partners who would be competitors. From the remaining possibilities, we asked ourselves which sports seem to us to convey the most positive images of collaboration. This is how we chose basketball and handball and these partnerships with the LFH (Women’s Handball League) and the LNB (National Basketball League).
Bruno Cammalleri: is this choice linked to the post JOP Paris 2024 temporality?
Fabrice Heyries : I will certainly surprise you but this turns out to be uncorrelated, because all our reflection and analysis work took place before the summer. It was for both legal and budgetary reasons that we could only start these new partnerships from the end of 2024. We thought about our strategy in the first half of the year, and we signed at the start of the school year with a planned launch. for November. But in fact, it turns out that we had superb results this summer in these two sports with our French teams during Paris 2024. We therefore said to ourselves that we had done well to make the right choices! We will also offer a series of events and activations throughout the year.
Bruno Cammalleri: quid du program d’ambassadorat?
Fabrice Heyries : we are going to support a few athletes who will become MGEN athletes in these two sports of basketball and handball. We already have a few athletes under contract, we are in the process of renewing them and choosing several new ones. We already have Laetitia Guapo with us. For the rest of the ambassadors, we are in the process of finalizing them and we will communicate a little later. They will be our ambassadors in terms of brands and outfits because we will dress them, and in terms of spokespersons.
There is also the idea of developing support for local sport by donating equipment to a number of clubs, particularly jerseys. This is a component that we will develop, in line with our partnership with the leagues. We want to help local sports practice.
Bruno Cammalleri: Sports practice among young girls is experiencing a real decline, with according to the INJEP 50% of them stopping sport in adolescence, while only 38% of licensees in sports federations are women. At the same time, the survey conducted in October by Publicis Media for MGEN reveals that the first qualifier cited by the French (31%) is the undervaluation of women’s sport. 85% of French people consider sponsorship to be an essential lever for their development. How to interpret these figures?
Fabrice Heyries : there had already been studies on the subject but which were a little dated. It seemed necessary and useful to us to launch this study in order to be able to operationally compare whether our vision was the right one. As mentioned previously, women, for different reasons, generally practice much less sport than men, whether young girls during adolescence, young women who become mothers, or even active women. However, 70% of our members are members, and given that we are a mutual, health sport is a central dimension for us. We therefore want to encourage women to get back into sport. There is also the societal dimension with regard to the values of equal opportunities that can be found in sport, because in fact sport is a vector of equal opportunities.
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**Interview with Fabrice Heyriès, General Director of MGEN**
**Bruno Cammalleri:** Thank you for joining us today, Fabrice. MGEN has launched the “Champions Club” program to support women’s sports. Can you explain your strategy behind this initiative?
**Fabrice Heyriès:** Absolutely, Bruno. Our involvement in sports isn’t new; we’ve previously supported individual athletes like Martin Fourcade and Marie-José Perec. However, after reflecting on our approach, we recognized the need to realign our strategy to better serve our policyholders—70% of whom are women, predominantly from sectors like education and public service.
**Bruno Cammalleri:** So, what’s the shift in focus?
**Fabrice Heyriès:** We’re moving away from just backing high-profile athletes to supporting women’s team sports. Team sports convey stronger messages about collaboration and unity, which resonate more with our organizational values. Additionally, it’s vital to address the decline in sports participation among women, as we aim to increase visibility and encourage young girls to engage in sports for their health and well-being.
**Bruno Cammalleri:** Why did you choose to partner specifically with the Women’s Handball League and the National Basketball League?
**Fabrice Heyriès:** We evaluated several options, taking into account sports with strong visibility in France and those that were actively seeking partners. Handball and basketball emerged as great choices because they represent collaboration and teamwork—values we strongly advocate for.
**Bruno Cammalleri:** Was the timing of the launch related to the Paris 2024 Olympics?
**Fabrice Heyriès:** Interestingly, no. Our strategy was developed earlier this year, and we planned to launch in November due to legal and budgetary considerations. While we were pleasantly surprised by the success of our teams during the Olympics, our decision was made independently of those events.
**Bruno Cammalleri:** Can you tell us more about the ambassador program you mentioned?
**Fabrice Heyriès:** We will be supporting a select group of athletes in handball and basketball as MGEN ambassadors. This includes dressing them in our brand and using their platforms to promote our commitment to women’s sports. We already have athletes like Laetitia Guapo onboard, and we’re finalizing more ambassadors soon.
**Bruno Cammalleri:** Thank you, Fabrice. It sounds like MGEN is making meaningful strides in promoting women’s sports!
**Fabrice Heyriès:** Thank you, Bruno. We’re excited about this initiative and look forward to making a positive impact in women’s sports.
