Media And The Virus: Sports, Fans Adapting

Michael Hedges December 31, 2020 Follow on Twitter

Sporting events - all of them - hold a special place among human endeavors. Feats of strength, endurance and skill have been rewarded for centuries, sometimes richly. Since ancient times athletic achievement derived even saintly stature. Losers, low those many years ago, fared less well. Spectators define sporting events. Media brings needed attention.

Sports federations and event organizers recognized early that the spread of coronavirus would have a decisive impact. This has led to acrimony among fans, players, teams, venue owners, sponsors and broadcast rights holders. All but fans, arguably, are in it for the money. Fans just want the competitions to continue, unhindered by coronavirus restrictions. Media outlets with any attachment to sports, games and athletics sped to a new plan.

The Olympic Games are the penultimate sporting event with deep historic resonance. March was an important month for the Tokyo Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. Weeks before caution was raised by national Olympic committees due to coronavirus outbreaks in China, site of several qualifying events. In short order the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Organizing Committee (Tokyo 2020) and the International Olympic Committee (ICO) issued statements confirming the July-August dates were still on. Three weeks later (March 23), Olympic committees in Canada, the UK and Australia said they would withdraw unless the Games were postponed for a year. The sentiment increased as Dick Pound, highly respected and influential IOC member, agreed that 2021 would be better for everybody.

The next day (March 24) the IOC and Tokyo 2020 agreed in principle with the postponement. A week later new dates were fixed; July 23rd to August 8th 2021. The Games would still be known as Tokyo 2020. The caveat, said IOC president Thomas Bach, was that there would be no further delay beyond 2021, cancellation the only option. The July 2021 opening ceremony date is a mere six months before the planned opening ceremony for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Like many sports events the Olympic Games are made-for-TV. Fans in the stands are tertiary, add a bit of color as well as noise. Sponsor contributions fall in between. But, it’s all related. Olympic Games attract tens of thousands of people; more when athletes (15 thousand expected in Tokyo), coaches, staff, ground crews, drivers, judges and translators are added in. On top of that are the reporters, photographers and broadcast crews; another several thousand. All of the above need to be housed and fed.

The delay raised costs to the Tokyo 2020 by US$2.4 billion to a bit more than US$15 billion, said Japan Times (December 4). About US$900 million is set aside for “coronavirus countermeasures.” Officially, the total cost of staging Tokyo 2020 had been tagged at US$12.6 billion, reported news agency AP (November 29), though unofficial audits suggested a much higher amount. Oxford University economists estimated the total at US$15.8 billion, quoted by AP (September 4), “already the most expensive Summer Games on record with costs set to go higher.”

Broadcast rights holders - as well as news outlets planning coverage - took in a big, deep breath. Obviously, schedules are being adjusted. The coronavirus pandemic and radical shifts in consumer behavior have caused a greater appreciation for supply chains and logistics. US television network NBC has invested mightily in the Olympic Games, US$4.4 billion for American broadcast rights through 2020 (now 2021) then extending the arrangement through 2032 for US$7.75 billion. The network broadcaster’s first dip into the Olympic ring was Tokyo 1964, when it broadcast the opening ceremonies (and nothing else) in color. NBC and its various subsidiaries are owned by huge telecom and pay-TV operator Comcast, acquired in 2011.

The postponement triggered a “Termination Rights” clause in the contract between NBC and the IOC, which NBC chose not to invoke, and a “Right of Abatement” clause forcing renegotiation “in good faith an equitable reduction in the applicable broadcast rights payments.” That process will not take place until after the rescheduled event. Tokyo 2020, as originally scheduled, was to have been key promotion for the company’s new Peacock streaming service.

NBC is expected to reduce the 2,000 staff previously estimated to work Tokyo 2020. "It's the equivalency of turning around an aircraft carrier to do this all again next year,” said media consultant Patrick Crakes to CNN Business (March 24). "It's also an additional challenge because the Beijing Winter Games in 2022 would likely only be six months later now.” After cases of a new coronavirus variant in visitors from the UK were reported in Tokyo, the Foreign Ministry ordered a a complete halt to foreign visitors from December 28 through the whole of January, reported CNN (December 28).

Eurosport, subsidiary of Discovery, acquired rights in European countries, mostly spun to national broadcasters. UK public broadcaster BBC has rights through 2024 with Eurosport taking pay-TV rights. France Télévisions, the French public broadcaster, has a similar arrangement. Middle East North Africa rights were acquired by beIN Sports. Elsewhere, regional rights were sold to brokers, like Discovery, and sold on to individual broadcasters. While Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), an IOC subsidiary, provides the technical broadcast product, individual broadcasters personalize coverage with nationally well-known hosts and commentators.

It’s worth remembering the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games, overcoming steep odds, was “watched by half the world’s population,” noted the IOC in a summary report (December 6, 2016). Sports media outlets invested fortunes, sometimes huge, to produce the “most digitally-enabled Olympic Games to date,” said the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in a review (February 9, 2018). The opening ceremony - colorful, musical Brazil as backdrop - reached 350 million viewers. Rio 2016 also offered established stars; swimmers Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky, gymnast Simone Biles, sprinter Usain Bolt and, not to be forgotten, the Brazilian men’s football (soccer) team. Fans roared.

With the coronavirus pandemic changing just about everything about media coverage of sports, there has been - in some corners - considerable experimenting, innovating if you prefer. As much as anything, media outlets have had to contend with fewer or no fans in the stands. The fans, of course, are a major source of color for news photographers and broadcasters. Yep, it’s about the cheering and jeering, ticket and beer selling notwithstanding.

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