Sports and COVID-19: Endorsement Deals Put On Hold For Olympic Athletes After Summer Games Pushed Back To 2021

By Toby Srebnik for LVSportsBiz.com

For the fourth time in Olympics history dating back to 1896, the Olympics have been impacted by world events.

In 1916, 1940, and 1944, Olympics scheduled for Germany, Japan, and England were all cancelled due to World War I and World War II. On March 24, just one week after the International Olympic Committee announced they were still fully committed to the 2020 Olympics later this summer in Tokyo, the IOC announced a postponement. A few days later, the Olympics were rescheduled for July 2021 but will still be called the 2020 Olympics.

For starters, the IOC took a lot longer to make a firm decision on a postponement than most other sports leagues. The NBA postponed their season indefinitely on March 11, and the following day, the NBA and NHL followed suit. The fact that it took both the Australian and Canadian teams’ pronouncements on March 23 that they would not compete at the Games if they were still held in 2020 seemed to be the decision that the IOC could not ignore.

The fact that the IOC didn’t believe the current influx of COVID-19 around the world should call for a quick decision is not surprising when one considers the 1968, 1972, and 1996 Summer Olympics were all touched by tragedy in some way without so much as a chance to grieve.

In 1968, 10 days before the Olympics opened in Mexico, the Mexican army killed nearly 300 people in the Tiatelolco Massacre but the Games began and finished without delay. At the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the entire Israeli team was killed by terrorists during the Games. Even after news of the massacre, that day’s events continued, and following just a two day delay, the Games continued. Finally, in 1996, a bomb went off in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. Although two spectators died, the Games went on without any pause at all the next day.

With the IOC’s decision, a bunch of dominoes began to fall, which I (@fsutoby) recently discussed with my co-host Jarret Streiner (@jarret23) on our Sports and Social Media Podcast, and we discussed many of the ramifications.

Athletes look forward to joining together with competitors from around the world every four years. They spend time training, trying out, training again, and then competing for the chance to win a gold medal. With the postponement, many athletes will now have to wait 15 months to be able to earn lucrative endorsement deals. In addition, many current sponsors may be putting their current deals on hold until closer to the start of next year’s Games, which will leave many athletes who depend upon that sponsorship money in limbo. While NBA players as well as tennis players and golfers have their pro tours they can fall back on, other athletes are not as fortunate.

With many team facilities shut down until further notice, athletes have to train at their homes, which is a definite hardship for swimmers as well as track and field competitors. Although not an apples to apples comparison, Streiner interviewed two members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Swim Team, Rowdy Gaines and Craig Beardsley. Both were in peak condition in the Summer of 1980 and ready to go to Moscow when President Jimmy Carter unexpectedly announced a boycott of the games due to Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. Everything they worked for over four years was now going to be delayed by another four years. In Gaines’ case, he made the 1984 team and won three gold medals. However, Beardsley failed to qualify and never got his chance to make up for 1980. All the training he put into making it in 1980 went for naught through no fault of his own.

For the 2020 athletes, the extra 15 months could make a huge difference for some who were already peaking and ready for this July. Again, through no fault of their own, a situation they never expected could end up costing some athletes a chance to make the Games due to the new normal when it comes to training. In addition, will training in isolation for many of these athletes affect the mental health of any of these athletes?

Michael Phelps recently talked about the importance of monitoring athletes’ mental health especially after the recent postponement. Hopefully the countries involved will figure out ways to do this to keep all athletes together as a community even if they can’t be together in person.

Finally, fans that have been waiting four to seven years to attend the Tokyo Olympics will now have to postpone their plans for another summer. Depending on how much they spent on tickets, hotel, and airfare, they could end up taking a loss on their investment depending on refund policies. However, many fans who may not have a financial investment in the Games have taken to social media to connect with athletes to keep encouraging them through these tough times and vice versa.

In a perfect world, the postponed Olympic Games go off without a hitch in 2021 in Tokyo. However since we as a planet have no idea when the current climate will change, it’s hard to say with absolute certainty that they will. 

Toby Srebnik is manager of public relations and communications for Truly Nolen Pest Control and has been with the company since 2015. He has spent 19 years in the Public Relations industry as well as 12 years in the Social Media industry and is the only person who is both a past president of the Public Relations Society of America’s Greater Fort Lauderdale and Greater Palm Beach Chapters. In 2019, Srebnik was honored with PRSA Greater Fort Lauderdale’s Wizard PR Award for Communicator of the Year. To contact Srebnik, you can find him on Twitter (@fsutoby) or email him at fsutoby@gmail.com. Srebnik can also be heard on the all-new Pitch to the Rhino Podcast with co-founders Jose Boza & Jarret Streiner: Episode 5 discussing “NOlympics 2020” featuring interviews with swimmers Rowdy Gaines and Craig Beardsley about making the 1980 U.S. Summer Olympic team and then missing the games due to a boycott, is now available on Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pitch-to-the-rhino-podcast/id1499429062?i=1000470585655), iHeartRadio, Spotify, Stitcher, and Podbean.