Athletistic / Olympic Games. Every two years, the two main federal channels switched from infotainment to sports for 16 days: every four years in February, the Winter Olympics were originally, and every four years, in July-August, the Summer Games. These sports forums gave people a vacation and TV channels ratings and profits. This was the case even at the time when the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) accused Russia of creating a state-level doping program and allowed Russian athletes to the Olympics only under a neutral flag. But now everything has changed.

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris will not be officially presented in Russia. Neither major channels, nor online cinemas, nor social networks have started buying broadcast rights to the 2024 Olympic Games. And all this is due to the position of the IOC.

After the start of the SVO in Ukraine, Russian athletes, by the will of the IOC, became pariahs. Six months later, under pressure from the UN, Thomas Bach and Co. were forced to ease the sanctions, but they still remained discriminatory.

On December 8, 2023, the IOC Executive Committee decided to allow Russian athletes to compete in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, but they deployed so many “stars” that it made their eyes sting. To be admitted to the 2024 Olympic Games, Russians had to accept the status of neutrality, which deprives them of the flag, anthem and any other references to their home country. In addition, Russian athletes had to qualify for the Olympics, not have ties to the security forces of their country (army, police, national guard) and also not support the SVO and the actions of high-ranking government officials. Only a few agreed to such demands and therefore a maximum of 15 Russians will perform in Paris.

Photo source: IOC

As a result, Russia now has no expectations of the 2024 Olympics. For most Russians, these competitions have completely lost their meaning. It has reached the point where many compatriots consider the athletes who agreed to the IOC’s demands and decided to go to Paris to be traitors. The closer the start of the Games, the stronger the negativity in Russian society. Therefore, it is not surprising that Channel One, VGTRK (Russia-1) and Match TV ignore the Olympics.

This decision has not only a patriotic component, but also a financial benefit: the broadcast rights to the Olympic Games cost a decent amount of money, which was previously paid for by advertising. And now advertisers will certainly not queue up to fill quotas: the fewer people are interested, the cheaper advertising will be.

Under these conditions, many expected that the broadcasts of the 2024 Olympic Games would be broadcast on digital platforms. This happened, for example, with biathlon: after the IBU sanctions, Match TV stopped broadcasting the World Cup stages, but they were taken over by the online cinema Okko. However, Okko has already officially announced that it will not buy the broadcast rights to the Paris Olympic Games. Other players in this market have followed the same path.

VKontakte has left a small window for the 2024 Olympics: they are not going to acquire the rights to broadcast the Games either, but they plan to shoot exclusive content – they are preparing a special studio where experts will be invited to discuss the most notable moments of the 2024 Olympics.

Photo source: NurPhoto

The last time the Olympic Games were not broadcast in Russia was in 1984, when the country was still part of the USSR. Then, due to political clashes with the United States, Soviet athletes did not go to the Games in Los Angeles. Exactly 40 years later, politics will again be responsible for the non-representation of the Olympic Games in our country. This time, this decision will be supported by a much larger number of Russians.

Without Russia, any competition loses its importance. It would be the same if the USA, Germany, Zimbabwe, El Salvador, Myanmar or Liechtenstein were suspended from sport for political reasons. It is not about the size of the countries, their political importance or their economic strength: sport has always been a link between people of different races, religions, political positions and financial capacities. And now the IOC has multiplied all of this by zero. The world of sport is sick and, unfortunately, it is still very far from being restored.

Nikita Serbakov, Athletistic



Athletistic