The Social Olympics

Paris Olympic Fun

While I always love the world coming together to celebrate cultures and sport, I think there is some extra energy to it this year, and a few things stood out from a media coverage perspective.

1. The Athletes social media: TikTok in particular has given a fantastic glimpse behind the scenes, with the majority of Olympians posting pretty consistently. Sharing their personalities, sense of humor, camaraderie, dedication, and a general shared community of pop culture references. They are all their own content experts at this point, and their posts are getting frequently shared by media networks. The track stars were all very consistent posters, as were the gymnasts, and especially the Norwegian “muffin man”, swimmer Henrik Christiansen, who racked up numbers with his obsession with the olympic village chocolate muffin. There are so many standouts, but American Rugby player Ilona Maher should really get a media deal given all of her content, championing the game, and driving new viewers - she hit 2 million followers on both Instagram and TikTok, 1 million of which came during these games, as they did in Tokyo)

2. More personal and candid moments from the athletes are being shared all around, less over-produced clips. It feels more connected. And I think a lot of it has to do with the speed and immediacy of social media captures (kudos to the social teams working 24/7)

3. Sport Photographers getting more recognition: Some of the shots coming out of Paris and Tahiti - like the viral image of Brazil's Gabriel Medina surfing by Jerome Brouillett - are being celebrated and driving people to the photographers social pages to see more of their work. I have also seen several callouts on media social posts that did not credit the photographer by name, which were immediately corrected.

4. Snoop Dogg (special correspondent for NBC Olympics) and Flavor Flav (who is sponsoring the Women's Water Polo Team) have been the most enthusiastic ambassadors, not just for the U.S. teams, but for lifting up people, parents, and the full spectrum of events. It's genuine, energetic, and the athletes have been thrilled. The Beyoncé spot for Team USA was fantastic too!

5. The Peacock app multi-stream options are great this time. With so many sports happening at once, you can watch/rewatch highlights at anytime or choose to watch a particular sport live so you don't miss the full coverage.

6. My only issue with U.S. NBC coverage - which happens every time - is that they need to include more global athlete stories and interviews. To get well rounded coverage, I have to follow multiple big media streams from around Europe and Canada to get it, and I think most people would like learning more about them too.
It has been a joy to watch the competition, and also this is the first summer Olympics where 50% of the athletes are women! Good luck to all of the athletes and to the many media members working around the clock, and thank you to Celine Dion for that triumphant, magic moment singing at the Opening Ceremonies.

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