The 2020 Tokyo Paralympics get underway with the Opening Ceremony tonight. If you live in the United States, however, you probably had no clue (unless you’re related to someone from Team USA, or you experienced the Google shower of Paralympic pictograms on your computer screen).
Of course, media coverage of the Paralympics is scant in the best of times. But with the Delta variant, evacuation in Afghanistan, earthquake in Haiti, floods in Tennessee, and wildfires still raging everywhere, the Games are competing against an unusual number of other major events for coverage.
That said, just as it was with the Olympics, NBC owns broadcasting rights to the Paralympics. But the reason you probably had no clue it gets underway tonight is that NBC gave the Paralympics only a fraction of the promotional hype it gave the Olympics. And this disparity will obtain to coverage of the events as well – with NBC planning to air only 200 hours of Paralympic competition on its main channels; whereas it aired 7,000 hours of Olympic competition.
NBC will air almost all of this Paralympic coverage on its cable stations, namely NBCSN and the Olympic Channel. It is hyping 1000 hours of streaming coverage on Peacock and NBC sports digital platform. But my streaming experience during the Olympics was such that I won’t even bother trying this time around.
Of course nothing personifies this media disinterest quite like NBC refusing even to send B-list anchors to cover the Paralympics. By glaring contrast, its coverage of the Olympics was such an all-hands-on-deck undertaking, NBC even dispatched Lester Holt, anchor of Nightly News, to report breaking news happening in America from Tokyo.
Unsurprisingly, advocates for the disabled are accusing NBC of discrimination. Alas, such accusations are as much a quadrennial feature as complaints about host cities not being fully prepared. Of course, Covid has precluded all such complaints.
Still, I feel obliged to reprise what I wrote two Paralympics ago in “In Defense of NBC’s Olympics vs. Paralympics Coverage,” September 14, 2012.
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I have no idea how much NBC paid for the exclusive rights. But it’s an indication of the level of interest NBC banked on that it contracted to provide 3,500 hours of Olympic coverage, but only 6 hours of Paralympic coverage.
People are criticizing the network for this limited Paralympics coverage, almost as much as they were criticizing it for broadcasting the Olympics on tape delay. What’s more, much of the criticism in this case is laced with accusations about discriminating against people with disabilities. Even I joined friends in venting reflexive, high-minded outrage.
Upon reflection, however, I believe criticisms in both cases are as unfair as they are uninformed. For I suspect exhaustive market research indicated that interest would be such that broadcasting any more than 6 hours would be a waste of capital resources.
I can personally attest that NBC made the right decision in both cases. Because I was so eager to know the results of premier events at the Olympics that I went out of my way to find them online. Moreover, my interest was such that, just as NBC calculated, knowing the results did nothing to diminish my interest in seeing its tape-delay broadcasts.
By instructive contrast, I’m ashamed to admit that the only time I became interested in anything related to the Paralympics was when the poster boy for these Games, Oscar Pistorius, suffered a surprising upset in the men’s 200m. And this was only because Pistorius received so much media attention during the Olympics for being the first double amputee to participate. Indeed, the greater is my shame that nothing but schadenfreude stoked my interest in actually seeing him humbled. …
At any rate, I’m not sure what it says about me that I was so interested in watching 3,500 hours of the Olympics, but so uninterested in watching just 6 hours of the Paralympics, let alone searching the Internet for timely results.
I have family members with disabilities. Therefore, I fully appreciate that the last thing Paralympians want is for their performances to evoke sympathy or, even worse, pity. Except that, as admirable and life affirming as their performances might be, a confluence of sympathy and pity is all I feel when I see people with disabilities competing in sporting events. …
I would bet my life savings that 99 percent of you who tuned in to the Olympics did so to watch Michael Phelps and/or Usain Bolt compete. On the other hand, I challenge you to name a single Paralympian (who is not a relative or friend) who you wanted to watch compete.
Not to mention that people who rave about the performance of athletes with disabilities always come across like annoying parents raving about the first baby steps of their children. Which is why much of the celebration of the Paralympic Games strikes me as patronizing, disingenuous, and even a little guilt-ridden.
I don’t know if this constitutes discrimination on my part. What I do know, however, is that hundreds of millions of people feel as I do. Which is why nobody should criticize NBC for making the undeniably sound business decision to provide such limited coverage of the Paralympics.
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Unfortunately, there was no Oscar Pistorius to generate interest this year.
Even worse, a number of investigative reports since 2016 – about Paralympic athletes “gaming the classification system to win medals” – have been even more damning to the Paralympics as a whole than reports of state-sponsored doping have been to Team Russia at the Olympics. Most notable are the BBC Radio 4 report, “Paralympics – Gaming the System,” September 23, 2018, and the BBC report “Paralympics: The Unfair Games,” June 16, 2021.
Incidentally, notwithstanding the schadenfreude when I wrote the above, I would not have wished the fate that befell Pistorius just months later, when he was arrested and charged for murdering his girlfriend. I shared my dismay in “Olympian Oscar Pistorius Now South Africa’s O.J. Simpson?” February 15, 2013, and “Oscar Pistorius Guilty of Murder. Duh,” December 7, 2015.
More importantly, notwithstanding my lack of interest, I wish all Paralympians well at these Games. And, for those of you who are truly interested in watching them compete, good luck finding coverage.
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