Report: Tour de France start in Germany would cost around €25 million

A possible start of the 2029 Tour de France will cost around €25 million ($29 million), daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung said on Wednesday.

The report said that organizers of the Grand Départ Allemagne association are calculating with this sum to stage a prologue in Berlin and three stages in eastern Germany.

The majority of the sum is licensing fees for Tour organizers ASO but there is hope that staging the famed race will generate an economic benefit in the region of €150 million from tourism and other areas.

"“Experience shows that for every euro spent more than ten times that amount is generated in return,” Andreas Prokop from Grand Départ Allemagne said, citing studies of previous Tour starts.

One third of the €25 million is to come from sponsors and the rest from public funds. The state of Saxony-Anhalt has already pledged financial support, and Berlin's governing senate intends to look into the matter.

The plan was originally to bid for a 2030 start and in Dresden, but the ASO prefers 2029 and also insisted on including Berlin to put the 40th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 at the centre of the Grand Départ.

Rival bids are from Slovenia, the home country of reigning champion Tadej Pogacar, and from the Czech Republic.

If awarded the Tour start, the German organizing association hopes to make a one-day race a permanent feature afterwards and to possibly bid for a world championships.

Germany has hosted the Grand Départ four times in the past, including 1987 in West Berlin and 2017 in Dusseldorf which was the last time.