Major public broadcasters and the International Olympic Committee share a desperate need to wean themselves away from their aging viewership. Both are trying to be hip to a younger crowd by making pacts with digital and wooing them with interactive options. The pending Tokyo Games, played behind closed doors, will be the largest scale attempt yet to bring gamification of live sports to Gen Z.
For the IOC the writing has been on the wall for a decade. It’s why it began dedicating more effort into streaming and digital content back in 2012. It’s why IOC President Thomas Bach struck a $1.3 billion deal with Discovery to be the gatekeeper for all Olympics content in Europe from 2018-2024.
Speaking to Euro Sport, he stressed that younger people’s viewing habits would shape much of the content, in particular their consumption of content via smartphones.
READ MORE: Tokyo 2020 News – Olympics Must Connect With Gamers To Stay Relevant, Says Bach (Euro Sport)
At the time, David Zaslav, president and CEO of Discovery Communications, said its “Mobile and direct-to-consumer platforms can reach more than 700 million people across Europe. This agreement will bring the Olympics Games to more viewers on more screens than ever before.”
That boast was backed up only last week by Andrew Georgiou, Discovery president of Sports, who told IBC 365, “This is our first summer Olympic games and we definitely want it viewed by more people across Europe than any other Games in history. We’ll achieve it because we’ve got the breadth of coverage.”
READ MORE: Tokyo Olympics 2020: Discovery Reveals Scale of Olympic Plans (IBC 365)
And he’s not likely to be wrong. A new survey carried out by AdColony found that nearly half of fans plan to watch the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Games on a mobile device. In addition, the majority are set to multitask on their mobile while watching the Games and most intriguingly the study found that the audience is expected to skew toward 63% females versus 35% males.
READ MORE: Study: Tokyo 2020 to be watched on mobile by nearly half of fans (Sports Pro Media)
Growing Digital Engagement
Core to the IOC’s agenda over the next five years is to “Grow digital engagement with people,” and since 70% of all IOC revenue is derived from broadcast rights sales it is the ability of broadcast partners to reach youth audiences which is vital for its continued relevance.
READ MORE: IOC Executive Board proposes Olympic Agenda 2020+5 as the strategic roadmap to 2025 (IOC)
Hence the battery of digital and gamified products being thrown at the wall from Tokyo. Just like host broadcaster Olympic Broadcasting Services experiments with AI and 5G at this Olympics, it has a is issuing a range of data and graphics driven gimmicks to see which ones will stick with the elusive millennial the most.
“Our ambition is to bring the magic of the athletes’ achievements to the world on an unprecedented scale,” says OBS CEO Yiannis Exarchos in an extensive official guide.
“Technology is going to play a critical role and allow us to bring fans ‘inside the venue’ virtually. The IOC and OBS believe these new digital innovations will leave a legacy which we will build on at future editions of the Olympic Games.”
READ MORE: Media Guide – Olympic Games – Tokyo 2020 – June 2021 (OBS)
Hit the Cheer Button
With fans barred entry, effort is being made to make them feel virtually present. For example, the reactions of fans watching back home will be displayed in five-second video selfies on a video matrix inside the venue, to give athletes something to respond to.
A virtual “cheer” button will be embedded on several broadcasters’ digital platforms. Fans can watch the broadcast feed of an Olympic event and virtually clap or cheer by clicking the button. The system collects all the cheers and renders a global map of “cheer activity.” The map is sent as a video stream to broadcasters and showcased on venue video boards.
OBS will produce 30% more content compared to Rio 2016, much of this headed to digital platforms. Digital publishers can draw on a repository of up to 9000 clips and short-form assets called Content+. This includes behind-the-scenes content from the competition venues and further content filmed with smartphones. Additionally, OBS plans to produce 1800 fast turnaround clips from all sports for digital consumption.
It will create 180- and 360-degree content specifically for Virtual Reality which Discovery (among rights holders) will distribute in Europe and will augment a number of events with graphics or tracking technology including a claimed first-of-its-kind broadcast enhancement using AI and computer vision to overlay visualizations during the athletics sprint events.
In another breakthrough, the coverage of the archery competition will provide biometric data from miniature sensors worn by the archers. The monitor’s receptors will detect the heart rate and transmit the data wirelessly to generate the on-screen television graphics.
“Audiences will be able to witness the heartbeat variations and adrenaline rush experienced by the archers as they shoot their arrow,” OBS says.
Twitch Sidecasting
Broadcasters are also making extensive digital deals for Olympic coverage. Discovery is pumping out bespoke content to Snap, Instagram and Facebook and NBC has a deal with Amazon-owned Twitch to produce and deliver live content. This includes “game-ified pre-Olympic activations, Olympic athlete interviews and Olympic-themed gaming competitions.”
“Twitch viewers tune in not only to watch their favorite athletes but to also take part in pre and post-game interviews and virtually connect with other fans from around the world,” said Michael Aragon, Chief Content Officer at Twitch.
READ MORE: NBC Olympics and Twitch Partner To Deliver Interactive Live Content Surrounding Tokyo Olympics (NBC Sports Group)
The most interesting activation, for its merger of the linear and the nonlinear sportscast is what NBC calls Primetime Sidecasting. During the primetime block of shows on NBC, Twitch creators will be commentating live on a companion interactive broadcast that encourages co-viewing of the nightly primetime broadcast on NBC. Twitch creators, watching off-camera NBC’s primetime coverage of the Games, will invite viewers to submit discussion topics in line with what anchors and guests are covering on the linear channel.
The overall aim is to attract advertisers to Twitch’s “robust youthful audience” with Olympic content with both parties NBC sharing in the ad revenue.
On top of this there is the Tokyo 2020 FanZone, described by the IOC as an “interactive gamification experience” available online on official Olympics digital channels.
READ MORE: Tokyo 2020 FanZone launches for an enhanced Olympic experience (IOC)
eSports To Save the Day?
A Trivia game is focused on pulling in Gen Z with prizes up for grabs. A Magic Moments product seems to be a highlights reel plucked from the archive. Another initiative, Fantasy Challenge, asks fans to create a team by selecting their 10 favorite athletes from individual sports. They can start a league with friends or join an existing one to compete against other teams.
This will no doubt reach its apotheosis in Paris 2024 when competitive computer gaming is expected to become an official Olympic event. The path to eSports inclusion has already been laid when the Intel Extreme Masters Pyeongchang was broadcast on the Olympic Channel and had partial support from the International Olympic Committee ahead of the 2018 Winter Games. Five Korean League of Legends players bore the Olympic torch during its journey through South Korea, marking another first in the relationship between the Games and competitive gaming.
The fast-growing eSports industry doesn’t need Olympic certification as much as the IOC needs the eSports stamp of approval.
The IOC is “a 19th century organization trying to deal with a 21st century phenomenon,” said former IOC VP and chairman of the OBS board, Dick Pound.
He was trying to counter resistance to including eSports in the movement. Though he warned against the inclusion of violent computer games. “We can get taken to the cleaners in a major hurry if we’re not very careful about this.”
READ MORE: Salt Lake City, Barcelona among Winter Olympic host options (USA Today)
At the same event, Thomas Bach reiterated that the IOC had to connect with hundreds of millions of gamers worldwide if the Olympic body is to remain relevant with the younger generation.
Google Doodles Travels to “Champion Island”
in celebration of the Games of the XXXII Olympiad, Google has released a new doodle, “Champion Island,” that allows users to navigate their own odyssey across a mythical, Japan-inspired land, joining forces with friends and defeating foes in myriad athletic endeavors for the chance to emerge victorious as the ultimate Sports Champion. The doodle was created in partnership with the legendary Japanese animation studio, STUDIO 4°C.
