By this time next year, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be in full swing. A record 33 sports will feature on the medal program. But they are by no means treated as equals – as is shown in the IOC’s graphic above: 28 are SPORTS, five are ADDITIONAL SPORTS.
And there is more: the 28 SPORTS could be broken down into five categories based on the following criteria (and their respective weight): television viewing (40%), internet popularity (20%), public surveys (15%), ticket requests (10%), press coverage (10%), and number of national federations (5%). The Olympic revenues going to each category vary considerably – but at the same time very comfortably – between the mid and the high eight-digit range in US dollars.
Olympic revenues for the five ADDITIONAL SPORTS, on the other hand, will be the same for all five. Zero, zilch, zip, nil, nought, nothing!
Something that has the leaders of the International Surfing Association pondering their future, which actually looks brighter than that of some of their peers. One should also bear in mind that all five ADDITIONAL SPORTS have incurred considerable expenditure in order to make it to Tokyo 2020.
Here is the article by SportsPro’s Michael Long, We Are Doing the Best We Can, which takes up on a few interesting comments made by Fernando Aguerre, the flamboyant President of the International Surfing Association, ISA, as well as by Bob Fasulo, the ISA executive director.
"This inspiration, love and passion for what we do, we have truckloads of, but the truck needs gas in the tank, and I think some extra gas would not be bad for us,” says Aguerre.
“To the IOC’s credit,” says Fasulo,“It (Olympic Agenda 2020 Recommendation 10) was a mechanism that allowed change, which of course we’re all in favor of, but now - and I’m not sure that the IOC has fully thought this through - it’s that sense of uncertainty. We need to be able to understand what our prospects are longer-term."