Anyone currently living in China and old enough to remember Public Enemy’s seminal 1988 rap Don’t Believe the Hype may soon turn to humming it as a defense mechanism. Because already, just seven days into 2008, the Olympic onslaught is relentless across China. As a drop-in-the-ocean example, during a 15-minute cross-town taxi ride in Shanghai today, the personal in-cab video screen showed the new “We are Ready: One Nation, One Dream” Beijing Olympic promo no less than five times. And the Games are still seven months away.
The hype isn’t just coming from within, of course – the global Olympic
machine is already moving smoothly through the gears. The latest claim,
by global media communications agency Initiative Sports Futures, is
that the Beijing Games opening ceremony could become the first sporting
event to attract a total live audience of a handily rounded-up one
billion people.
The supporting evidence, however, appears rather thin. Kevin Alavy,
Head of Analytics at Initiative Sports Futures, said that only a
handful of elite competitions truly attract global audiences. The final
of the 2007 Rugby World Cup, for example, drew only 33 million viewers
globally, whereas the most-watched sporting event in 2007 was the Super
Bowl, with an average of 97 million viewers tuning in at any one time
during the game. Audiences for more international events, though, like
the Olympics, fluctuate widely, based on factors like the size of the
host country and which time zone they take place in. Somehow, that
equates to the “possible billion” viewing audience. Watch that space.
Last update : Tuesday, 08 January 2008
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