There is usually a two-year breathing period between the summer and winter Olympics, but due to COVID, the Beijing Winter Olympics are set to take place just 6 months after the year-delayed summer games in Toyko.
Richard Deitsch of The Athletic, along with many other media members, believes that this short turnaround could affect viewership for the games, along with a myriad of other issues faulting the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
Deitsch had a panel of Chad Finn, sports media writer and columnist for The Boston Globe, and Austin Karp, managing editor/digital for Sports Business Journal, to examine some questions surrounding the viewership and NBC’s editorial coverage of the Games.
Karp mentioned a number of issue that could play a role in the Olympic Games producing low viewership numbers including Olympic Fatigue, another Asia-based games with less than ideal time slot for the U.S, and a lack of star power for the U.S.
Finn agreed saying “The biggest one to me is fatigue. I’ve had more than one person recently express to me some version of this — “The Olympics are back? Didn’t we just have them?”
The 2018 Winter Olympic games were down in their own right from previous years. All three of these panelists predict that the ratings are due to drop again this year.
“I am skeptical that emerging stars during these Games will prevent a similar — or even worse — fall. I’ll predict a 10 percent drop, to 16.1 million,” said Finn.
“I’m guessing the number could drop to something like 15 million for the Winter Games in 2022.” said Karp.
All of these issues paired with the heightened scrutiny of human right abuses by China leading to a recently announced diplomatic boycott by the US, could mean viewership is doomed to drop significantly.