The Olympics Media Conundrum

Imagining How We'll Consume Future Games

The Olympics are a ratings hit, with TV viewership way up from the Covid-delayed Tokyo games and the Games generating multiple social media sensations.

But I was intrigued by Scott Galloway’s analysis of the event and its coverage. He argues that the tiktokification and oversupply of content makes the games feel smaller, and as result their cultural impact is dulled.

It’s hard to argue with that take, but I think we’re still in an entirely transitional phase of what the Olympics mean in the media landscape.

There was the highly curated, rich-in-storytelling nightly broadcasts of the 90s and 00s. Now we have the raw, choose-your-own-adventure approach of today (with the option, I suppose, of being retro and just tuning in every night). But if the former was forced to be presumptuous in its coverage, the latter lacks context, aside from the quick sound bites that commentators can provide in between events. We’re missing the goldilocks choice, the ability to dimensionalize the sporting action with the larger journey there.

For example, a Ukrainian woman, who literally fled from the sounds of gunshots when war Russia invaded, won the gold in high jump, an event last won in Tokyo by a Russian now banned from global track & field competition because of the invasion.  

Winning is less interesting when you don’t know the stakes.

Without the context that past years’ coverage was able to provide, the information vacuum is filled with false or misleading stories that take on a life of their own, like the hate-filled rhetoric around female boxer Imane Khelif endured through her competition.

I feel for NBC. They have to present the games in spite of challenges like reliance on world feeds and events not at all designed for broadcast while appeasing both cord-cutters with heightened digital expectations and broadcast traditionalists expecting to be hand-held through the two weeks (not to mention their spoiler-happy competitors who love sending out push notifications about American gold medalists). Peacock’s Multi-View, which lets you seamlessly bounce between events of your choosing, seems to be a big hit based on social media responses.

Rather than nitpick NBC’s presentation of the Games, let’s fast forward to the 2036 Olympics to explore how media, entertainment, and even the geopolitical landscape may evolve…

Istanbul 2036

It’s fitting that the 2036 Summer Olympics will be hosted by Istanbul, the city that buttresses two continents, as it will also be the first Olympics awarded to a single global media partner. Netflix will win the bidding over Amazon, AppleMax, Disney, and Mountcock/NBC after agreeing to sublicense to local streaming services in China, North Korea, and Texflorida.

While Netflix’s production approach will build on its successful global presentation of WWE, UFC, NFL, and the Pickeball World Cup, this will be the largest coordinated production in history, presenting the games in more than 150 languages.

With the world now completely removed from the contractual and logisitical restrictions of broadcast, these games will finally use streaming technology to its maximum potential. It will be personalized, interactive, modular, and even searchable.

You will not only choose your language and country but also be able get customized commentary depending on how home-team biased you want to be. Turn-based events like gymnastics and diving will let you easily skip certain athletes or countries with a swipe. No more awkward fast forwards hoping you hit play at the right time.

Netflix will also take Amazon Prime’s X-ray feature to the next level. If you’re watching in Ethiopia and wondering about the relationship between the athletes from Canada and newly independent Newfoundland, you can pause the curling (climate change forced them to move it to a Summer Olympics sport) and ask Netflix’s AI assistant Eleven, who will give you the insight you’re after.

To recoup some of their $85 billion investment, Netflix will also offer a premium viewing option, which replaces commercials with one single sponsor for each Olympic sport (Hermes for all equestrian events, Rolex for swimming). These sponsors utilize Netflix’s addressable targeting and AI ad production technology to tell an extended story over the course of the games. Shawarma King (exclusive owner of the weightlifting events and previously known as Burger King before a brand re-imagining), for example, uses their premium ad time to showcase the hundreds of local Turkish restaurants whose recipes inspired their signature menu items. The premium tier costs an extra $100 (or 75 bitcoin) for the duration of the games.

The premium tier also includes access to special behind the scenes footage shot by the athletes themselves available via Netflix’s mobile-exclusive app FlixTok. One of the most popular of these exclusive feeds is by Bronny James, the MVP of the US Men’s Handball team.

But the most notable and impactful of Netflix’s Olympic innovations will be in how they tell stories. Rather than wait until the summer of 2036 to introduce us to the athletes and surrounding personalities, Netflix will dramatically expand the storytelling window by borrowing lessons from how Drive to Survive boosted the popularity of Formula 1.

In fact, their coverage will begin the day after the end of the 2032 Games in Brisbane, when they launch a real-time documentary centered around Istanbul’s mayor and the rest of the organizing committee, as they begin the four-year race to put on the event.

That will be the first of hundreds of sports documentaries and reality shows they present around the world over the next four years. Some will be designed for global audiences, featuring athletes from multiple countries, while others will focus on specific sports in specific countries. Some of the featured athletes’ stories will end in disappointment without Olympic qualification. But since Netflix will place enough bets across the globe, many of these stories will culminate in the live coverage of the events in Istanbul.

Thanks to this, the two-week Olympic Games themselves become the season finale of a years-long series of sports documentary series, the culmination of an Athletic Cinematic Universe, dramatically boosting the stakes and dramatic tension.

And yes, most importantly, there will be a nightly dating show set inside the athletes’ Olympic Village.

---

This Week’s Whimsies

“What Monkeys Tell Us About Community” makes a very useful connection between primitive primate grooming and our social media behavior. This is presented without comment.

“YouTube Is Underrated” is a sentiment I’ve long assumed to be true, but this stat-centric analysis blew my mind.

Elon Musk is a petty, petulant cry baby.

Speaking of which, as usual Garbage Day brought the goods while answering the question, “Does X Matter?”