INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

Finally, media, commercialism, and economics have come to
dominate the modern Games. The Olympics appeared on television
for the first time in 1936, with broadcasting rights sold for the first
time in 1948. Since that time, the Olympic Games have become a
global media event. The Games have moved from being funded
largely by private patrons to using a combination of public financing,
sponsorship, and broadcasting rights fees. The increasing importance
of television can be seen in broadcast hours, which have risen from
20,000 in Barcelona (1992) to 29,600 in Sydney (2000). And, since
Montreal in 1976, Olympic Games have becoming profit-making
ventures for their organizing committees. Though there is often a
systematic overestimation of the positive effects and underestimation
of the negative effects of Olympic Games on host cities. As well, the
economic success of the Games is balanced by concerns that the
Games have become commodified. As athletes gain star status, there
is concern that the media presentation of the Olympic spectacle has
become more important than the sports performances. There is a
growing gap between Coubertin’s ideals and the current Olympic
reality.
• Other Olympic Games
The issue of including winter sports within the Olympic program
arose not long after the revival of the modern Olympic Games.
Skating was on the program of the IOC Congress in 1894 and the
Paris Games in 1900, but not contested until 1908 in London. By the
1920s, winter events had been granted their own status as separate
Games. The winter sports week in Chamonix in 1924, associated with
the Paris Games of that year, were subsequently labeled as the first
Winter Olympic Games. A number of IOC presidents fought against
the continuation of the Winter Games, including Brundage, who felt
that winter sports were too far removed from the ideals of amateurism.
As the Olympic movement entered a more pragmatic era in the 1970s
and 1980s, the Winter Games became more accepted. There still
remains concern, however, that the Games are less prestigious than
their summer counterpart and that, by appealing only to the small
number of Nordic nations, do not uphold Olympic ideal of
universality. Two student presentations highlighted issues related to
the Winter Olympics.
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