Breaking Barriers: Paralympic Broadcasting’s Watershed Moment in Paris
During the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, my wife and I struggled to find a school for our two daughters due to restrictions in class sizes. After an extensive search, we found a school that followed the French education system and could accept them immediately.
Le Lycée Français de San Diego is an international school with about 29 countries represented by the student body. For that reason, on the last day of class in June, the school chose to celebrate by hosting a parade full of pomp and circumstance, much like the opening ceremonies for the Olympics. It was good timing, considering many of us would be spending much of our summer vacation glued to our televisions watching the world’s greatest athletes competing in the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris.
As expected, NBCUniversal did an excellent job covering the 17 days of Olympic competition, but I was surprised to see that they followed that up with another 12 days of Paralympic coverage. Matter of fact, by the time those Games ended, NBCUniversal set a few Paralympic records of its own.
Coverage of the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games reached a record 15.4 million viewers via NBC, Peacock, CNBC, USA Network and Telemundo from the opening ceremonies on Aug. 28 to the closing ceremonies on Sept. 8.
Moreover, NBCUniversal’s efforts to reach the broadest spectrum of viewership included enhanced closed captioning, expanded audio description and improved digital content accessibility. NBCUniversal’s effort to expand viewership was a success and resulted in the most-watched Paralympics cable telecast on record.
“From the host city to the athlete performances to the return of friends and families, Paris 2024 set a new standard of excellence and will be regarded as one of the most spectacular Paralympic Games ever,” Executive Producer and President of NBC Olympics & Paralympics Production Molly Solomon says in a Sept. 13 press release. “We knew our coverage needed to meet the moment, so we produced more hours than ever, streamed every sport on Peacock, added innovations such as Gold Zone and Multiview for the first time and had more commentators on site than ever before. The result was record viewership, setting a high bar for LA28 that we can’t wait to surpass yet again.”
Obviously, Paralympic organizers want exposure and NBCUniversal delivered, but that comes at an enormous cost. So, you might be asking yourself, “Who’s paying the bills?”
Well, much credit goes to Toyota Motor Corporation, which was the presenting sponsor of NBCUniversal’s exclusive coverage. NBCUniversal reported a 60% increase in advertising sales compared to the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo, so maybe there’s money to be made when covering adaptive sports?
But are fans of adaptive sports satisfied with media coverage in between Paralympics? Probably not. Would viewers want to see wheelchair rugby and basketball every weekend on television? I don’t know. But I‘ve got a feeling NBCUniversal, Telemundo or any other network won’t be covering adaptive sports again until 2028.
In the meantime, we can watch Detours. The show is a partner of SPORTS ’N SPOKES and is hosted by two-time Paralympian Bob Molinatti. Detours creates original video content for its YouTube channel and sportsnspokes.com, where Bob engages in conversations with athletes, coaches and others regarding the past, present and future of adaptive sports.
The impact of Detours’ content has exceeded expectations, so expanding its coverage is certainly in its future.
“Once viewership increases to a level that can support our expansion, we can begin providing live coverage of events and competitions in addition to our interviews that we’re doing now,” Bob says.
Years ago, a benchmark leading to legitimizing adaptive sports was seeing it on network and cable television. Beginning in the 1990s, Bob covered adaptive sports as host of ESPN’s Breakaway and a few years later, In Pursuit, giving adaptive sports a boost in “street cred.” But these days, people are migrating to streaming services for more personalized viewership.
Nielsen Media Research tracks viewership, and according to its July 2024 report, streaming services represent 41.4% of the consumer pie, while cable is at 26.7% and broadcast is a mere 20.3%.
It should be no surprise that Detours chose YouTube’s platform, considering it’s leading the pack with more than 10% of the streaming market.
“Network recognition is in many ways fading from the concept of legitimacy of the product’s success,” Bob says. “Streaming is clearly the future where viewers can watch what they want with little more commitment than turning on their personal device.”
Coverage of adaptive sports lends acceptance and respect — something that has been in the works since 1948, when a wheelchair basketball team comprising paralyzed veterans barnstormed America with an entourage of sports journalists covering their games on television and in newspapers.
Whether I’m watching the Paralympics on television, a wheelchair rugby match on Peacock or Bob interviewing the latest men’s or women’s wheelchair division winner of the Boston Marathon on Detours, I appreciate the coverage and that it’s available on a broad spectrum of media platforms.
Further, I’m happy to see the executives at corporations as big as Toyota find adaptive sports worthy of their financial support; not just for some kind of altruistic cause, but something that has commercial viability.
When this summer ended, it was time for the kids to start class again. I’m sure those of you who use wheelchairs are familiar with the attention we seem to draw from curious kids.
While in a crowded hallway crammed with kindergartners, I was approached by one of my daughter’s classmates, whose family was from Martinique in the French West Indies. Hanging around the 5-year-old boy’s neck was Phryge, the red anthropomorphic Phrygian cap that was the mascot for the 2024 Paralympic Games.
This historically symbolic cap was worn by the rebels during the French Revolution, so it represents liberty, patriotism and all that good stuff. Perhaps you might find it even more interesting that Papa Smurf donned the Phrygian cap? OK, maybe not.
Nevertheless, it was easy to appreciate this little boy’s pride in his French roots considering he attended a French school, but I was surprised when his parents told me their son had been watching the Paralympics on NBC every evening and had become a big fan.
All the same, I’m just happy a 5-year-old kid finds athletes competing in wheelchairs interesting. It gives me hope for the normalization of adaptive sports.
As usual, partagez vos pensées at
al@pvamag.com.