Olympians offer a dose of perspective
HAD this been a normal leap year, we might have been a little bleary-eyed this morning. RTÉ 2 was meant to be Ireland’s Olympic Channel at this time, so we might have been sitting up in the wee small hours, wondering how those table tennis players put such spin on the ball or sucked into the tension of an attritional water polo contest between Serbia and Germany.
The Olympics are an event made for television in the way it catches viewers unaware and drags them into the middle of a sport they had previously not cared for. Tokyo’s postponement created a gaping chasm in telly schedules. Some have compensated — RTÉ 2 always have
Neighbours and Home And Away, others have not.
NBC’s Olympic operation has to be seen to be believed. They employ an army of thousands and have their own separate media area — in London, it came complete with a Starbucks and McDonalds. Not that we were envious of Starbucks, but it puts the hot meal we get served in the Croker press box on All-Ireland final day into perspective.
To fill the Olympic-sized hole, NBC have turned to Premier Lacrosse League, which is unlikely to yield the more than $1billion in advertising revenue they were expecting from Tokyo.
Given that 73% of the International Olympic Committee’s revenue is generated by broadcasting, and most of that money comes from NBC, one wonders what happens if the Games are still in doubt next summer.
It was one of the points Evanne Ní Chuilinn raised with Sarah Keane, the President of the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI), on Tokyo 2020: One Year To Go on RTÉ 1 last Thursday. Keane is a skilful operator, whose navigation of OFI through some fairly choppy waters had her down as a credible candidate to sort through the mess in the FAI.
Keane pointed out that broadcasting rights deals have been made for years in advance (NBC’s deal runs through to 2032), so it shouldn’t affect the finances of national federations. And she struck an optimistic note when asked if she believed if the games would go ahead next summer. Ní Chuilinn had her homework done, but most of the athletes and administrators were positive that there would be an Olympics in 2021, although positivity seems the default setting for some, like Ciara Mageean, fresh off becoming the first Irish woman to run under two minutes for 800m.
There was a word of warning from Gearóid Reidy, an Offaly man who works as a journalist in Tokyo, who suggested that not all the locals are enamoured about the idea of thousands of people coming into the city if the coronavirus remains rampant.
As a piece of public service broadcasting, the show was worth while and if nothing else, it allowed RTÉ to show off the shiny studio that was supposed to be transmitting wall-to-wall Olympic coverage right about now. There was barely a downbeat note struck by any athlete.
Perhaps, the most telling contribution came from boxer Kellie Harrington, who won world championship gold in 2018, and would be one of the favourites for the podium in Tokyo. If the Olympics were cancelled, Harrington said that she would hang up her gloves, happy with what she had achieved in boxing.
It’s a sense of perspective, and even realism, that many other athletes might need between now and next summer, if a vaccine for Covid-19 should remain elusive.
Later that night, there was a real sign that the global business of sport was getting gingerly back on its feet. From its bio-secure bubble in Disneyworld, the NBA restarted its season and the scene before Utah Jazz and New Orelans Pelicans tipped off in the opening game was powerful.
Every player took a knee and linked arms, some raising a fist in the air, while John Baptiste played a stirring instrumental version of Star-Spangled Banner. Even if we had become somewhat inured to the gesture towards the end of the Premier League season, these images resonated. Former NBA star Stephen Jackson was a good friend of George Floyd, whose killing by police in Minneapolis sparked the wave of Black Lives Matter protests, and there’s no league so dependent on the black community for their superstars and where the players themselves are so active in the cause of social justice.
Across the four teams that played on Thursday night — LA Lakers met the Clippers later — the names on their jerseys were replaced by phrases related to social justice including ‘peace’, ‘equality’ and ‘listen to me’.It felt like that mattered more than what happened in the games, which were played in an environment so strange that the Lakers beat the Clippers and there was no sign of Jack Nicholson.
If the Lakers do go deep into the play-offs, they may need a cardboard cut-out of their most famous fan, just for things to feel more normal.