Governing Bodies
Why are the Olympics still happening? These numbers explain it
The Olympic Games have always been about numbers. After all, a motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius – faster, higher, stronger – doesn’t mean much without seconds, meters and pounds. How fast? How high? How strong?
For more than a year, though, a different set of numbers has come to dominate discussions about the Tokyo Games: rising coronavirus case counts, escalating risk factors, inadequate vaccination totals.
Despite those concerns, the games are almost certain to go forward this summer: The latest evidence was the announcement Monday that domestic spectators would be allowed to attend Olympic events at reduced capacities.
These numbers may help explain why – a month before the opening ceremony – the games are still a go.
US$15.4 billion (S$20.7 billion)
If Tokyo’s new national stadium stands empty on the night of the opening ceremony, that will be US$15.4 billion in investment mostly down the drain. The figure, a record even for famously oversized Olympic budgets, has swelled US$3 billion in the past year alone. The reputational damage to Japan, though, on top of the loss of money, would be incalculable.
“This was the branding exercise that was going to showcase the lifestyle superpower of the Earth,” said Jesper Koll, an investment adviser who has lived in Japan for more than three decades. “At the end of the day, it is not about whether the construction costs are recouped or not, but it is about whether the brand of the country gets a boost.”
Much of the upside that Tokyo hoteliers or restaurants could have expected from hosting the games has already evaporated, as organisers banned international spectators in March.
And even the Olympic visitors who will be allowed to enter Japan will not get to experience most of Tokyo’s charms because the rules restrict them to Olympic venues.
US$4 billion
That’s the potential amount of television rights income that the International Olympic Committee, which organises and runs the games, could have to refund if the Olympics are not held. The figure accounts for 73 per cent of the IOC’s revenue. Sponsorships related to the games account for hundreds of millions of dollars more, and a cancellation would mean those companies could come looking for rebates, too.
US$1.25 billion
The US broadcasting rights to the Summer Olympics are among the most valuable sports properties in the world, and the advertising revenue they produce regularly makes them among the most profitable, too.
In March 2020, NBC Universal, which holds the US broadcast rights to the games, announced it had sold US$1.25 billion in national advertising for the Tokyo Olympics. That exceeded the amount sold for the 2016 Rio Olympics, which had generated US$1.62 billion in total revenue for the company and US$250 million in profits.
And not even a year’s delay may hurt NBC’s bottom line. Jeff Shell, the chief executive of NBC Universal, told an investor conference last week that, depending upon ratings, the Tokyo Olympics “could be our most profitable Olympics in the history of the company.”
US$549 million
The word “solidarity” comes up 406 times in the IOC’s latest annual report. The most significant reference is to the US$549 million it distributes in so-called solidarity and other payments to national Olympic committees large and small. (The IOC’s accounts do not provide a breakdown of who gets what).
To many Olympic committees, the IOC’s largesse – which pays for everything from administrative costs to training subsidies to youth development programs – is a vital financial lifeline.
In the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, for example, IOC funding represents around a quarter of the national Olympic committee’s US$600,000 annual income, according to Richard Peterkin, a former IOC member.
But larger countries count on the money, too. Earlier this year, the British Olympic Association raised the prospect of a financial meltdown in its annual report if this summer’s games were cancelled.
“Cancellation of the games later than May 2021,” its directors concluded recently, “would create a material uncertainty that may cast significant doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”
15,500
The postponement of the Olympics forced thousands of the athletes – about 11,100 for the Olympics and 4,400 for the Paralympics, together representing more than 200 countries – to put their lives on hold for a year. To recommit to another 12 months of training. To delay marriage plans and college enrolments and even plans to have children. So it is no surprise that, by and large, competitors worldwide are eager for the games to finally take place.
“My next chapter was supposed to be happening already,” said Delante Johnson, 22, a boxer from Cleveland who had aimed to turn professional in 2021. He decided to keep his amateur status for another year, in part, to fulfil a promise he had made to his former coach, Clint Martin, who died in 2015.
“He always told me I’d go to the Olympics,” Johnson said, “and I’m holding on to what he said.”
For Olympians who have arranged their entire lives to chase their dreams, the games are everything. They can open the door to sponsorship opportunities, to bonus money for medals, to post-competition careers. For many, they also offer the rare chance to perform in front of a global audience.
“We’re finally allowed to have that excitement, and I’m just giddy,” said Kaleigh Gilchrist, 29, a water polo player from Newport Beach, California. “We can finally showcase all the hard work we’ve put in.”
37 per cent
That’s the current favourability rating for Japan’s prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, who may fear his political fortunes are now tied too closely to the games to cancel them. “Politically he’s dead in the water if he pulls the plug,” said Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo.
With national elections looming in September, Kingston said, Suga may now see the Olympics as a potential lifeline.
For Suga and his government, staging a successful – and safe – Olympics would offer a huge political upside. The downside, of course, is the risk of a public health disaster that costs lives and pummels Japan’s economy. That would inflict damage far more serious than just harming Suga’s personal political reputation.
“This is the potential making of the Godzilla variant,” Kingston said. “Is that how Tokyo wants to be remembered?”
-New York Times
Kirsty Coventry became the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful person in sport, on Monday in a handover ceremony with her predecessor Thomas Bach.
The Zimbabwean is the first woman and African to head the body, and at 41, the youngest since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who is credited with founding the modern-day Olympics.
Coventry accepted the Olympic key from Bach, who, like her, is an Olympic champion — he won a team fencing gold in 1976 and she earned two swimming golds in 2004 and 2008.
Stepping down after a turbulent 12-year tenure, Bach expressed his confidence that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands” and Coventry would bring “conviction, integrity and a dynamic perspective” to the role.
Coventry, who swept to a crushing first-round victory in the election in Greece in March, leans heavily on her family.
Aside from her parents, who were present at the ceremony in Lausanne, there is her husband Tyrone Seward, who was effectively her campaign manager, and two daughters, six-year-old Ella, who Bach addresses as “princess”, and Lily, just seven months old.
“Ella saw this spider web in the garden and I pointed out how it is made, and how strong and resilient it is to bad weather and little critters,” said Coventry, who takes over officially at midnight Swiss time Monday (2200 GMT).
“But if one little bit breaks it becomes weaker. That spider web is our movement, it is complex, beautiful and strong but it only works if we remain together and united.”
‘Pure passion’
Coventry said she could not believe how her life had evolved since she first dreamt of Olympic glory in 1992.
“How lucky are we creating a platform for generations to come to reach their dreams,” she said to a packed audience in a marquee in the Olympic House garden, which comprised IOC members, including those she defeated, and dignitaries.
“It is amazing and incredible, indeed I cannot believe that from my dream in 1992 of going to an Olympic Games and winning a medal I would be standing here with you to make dreams for more young children round the world.”
Coventry, who served in the Zimbabwean government as sports and arts Minister from 2019 to this year, said the Olympic movement was much more than a “multi-sport event platform.”
“We (IOC members) are guardians of this movement, which is also about inspiring and changing lives and bringing hope,” she said.
“These things are not to be taken lightly and I will be working with each and every one of you to continue to change lives and be a beacon of hope in a divided world.
“I am really honoured to walk this journey with you.”
Bach, who during his tenure had to grapple with Russian doping and their invasions of the Crimea and Ukraine as well as the Covid pandemic, said he was standing down filled with “gratitude, joy and confidence” in his successor.
“With her election it sends out a powerful message, that the IOC continues to evolve,” said the 71-year-old German, who was named honorary lifetime president in Greece in March.
“It has its first female and African to hold this position, and the youngest president since Pierre de Coubertin. She represents the truly global and youthful spirit of our community.”
Bach, who choked back tears at one point during his valedictory speech, was praised to the rafters by Coventry, who was widely seen as his preferred candidate of the seven vying for his post.
After a warm embrace, she credited him with teaching her to “listen to people and to respect them,” and praised him for leading the movement with “pure passion and purpose.”
“You have kept us united through the most turbulent times.
“You left us with many legacies and hope, thank you from the bottom of my heart for leading us with passion and never wavering from our values.”
-AFP
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Former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry took over the leadership of the International Olympic Committee from Thomas Bach in a ceremony on Monday with the 2028 Los Angeles Games already threatening to fill her in-tray to overflowing.
Coventry, who starts her eight-year spell officially on Tuesday as the most powerful sports administrator in the world, became the first woman and first African to be elected head of the Olympic ruling body in March.
Much of the discussion during campaigning focused on the IOC’s need for change in its marketing strategies with several top Olympic sponsors having left in the past 12 months.
However, with Los Angeles hit by protests against immigration raids, and relations tense between state and city officials, and the U.S. government, the 2028 Games have become the major talking point in the movement that would ordinarily be focusing on next year’s Milano-Cortina Winter Games.
Coventry has long-standing ties with the United States, dating back to her time as a leading swimmer at Auburn University in Alabama. That will prove useful ahead of LA 2028, and she has said she will seek to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the Games.
Coventry will also need to find time to help secure the long-term finances of the movement. The IOC, which generates billions of dollars in revenues each year in sponsorship and broadcasting deals for the Olympics, has secured $7.3 billion for 2025-28 and $6.2 billion for 2029-2032. More contracts are expected for both periods.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Coventry is also expected to continue the IOC’s plans to expand commercial opportunities for sponsors at the Olympics with the organisation’s finances in a robust state and the privately-funded LA Olympics a good place to start.
Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, beating six other candidates, making history for the African continent, with the IOC having been ruled for 131 years by European or North American men.
Her background and being the first female president will be assets in a diverse IOC membership and the international makeup of Olympic stakeholders.
On Monday she was handed the golden key to the IOC by Bach, who was the organisation’s president for 12 years.
“I am really honoured I get to walk this journey with you. I cannot wait for anything that lies ahead,” Coventry said in her address to IOC members and other Olympic stakeholders.
“I know I have the best team to support me and our movement over the next eight years.”
Coventry will hold a two-day workshop this week to get feedback from members on key IOC issues.
“Working together and consistently finding ways to strengthen and keep united our movement that will ensure that we wake up daily… to continue to inspire,” she said.
A seven-time Olympic medallist, Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and in Beijing four years later.
“With her election, you have also sent a powerful message to the world: the IOC continues to evolve,” Bach said in his speech. “With Kirsty Coventry, the Olympic movement will be in the best of hands.”
-Reuters
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Penalties scored when a player accidentally touches the ball twice must be retaken, world soccer’s lawmaking body IFAB has said after Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez had his spot kick disallowed in a Champions League last-16 match.
During a tense shootout with Real Madrid in March, Argentine forward Alvarez slipped and the VAR spotted that his left foot touched the ball slightly before he kicked it with his right.
Although Alvarez converted the penalty, the goal was chalked off and Atletico went on to lose the shootout and were eliminated from the Champions League.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA said the correct decision was made under the current laws but IFAB (International Football Association Board) has said that in such cases the penalty must be retaken.
Atletico Madrid v Real Valladolid – Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain – April 14, 2025 Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez scores their first goal from the penalty spot REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo
“(When) the penalty taker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet simultaneously or the ball touches their non-kicking foot or leg immediately after the kick: if the kick is successful, it is retaken,” IFAB said in a circular.
“If the kick is unsuccessful, an indirect free kick is awarded (unless the referee plays advantage when it clearly benefits the defending team). In the case of penalties (penalty shootout), the kick is recorded as missed.”
The decision to disallow Alvarez’s penalty left Atletico boss Diego Simeone livid and the club’s fans outraged.
IFAB added that if the penalty taker deliberately kicks the ball with both feet or deliberately touches it a second time, an indirect free kick is awarded or, in the case of shootouts, it is recorded as missed.
The new procedures are effective for competitions starting on or after July 1, but IFAB said it may be used in competitions that start this month.
-Reuters
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