A Modest Plan to Save Olympic Wrestling

Mark Hatmaker

 By now most of we wrestling enthusiasts have heard the surprising and disappointing news that wrestling will be dropped from the Summer Olympic Games roster beginning in 2020--that makes the next Summer Games in Brazil in 2016 potentially our last chance to see this noble sport that has been part of the Olympics since the very beginning.  

Now none of us, I assume, being members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have little sway, but maybe, just maybe, many of us in mass can convert no-sway to enough of a ripple-effect to at least give pause for re-consideration. To help this ripple effect many petitions are floating around out there to ask the IOC to change its collective mind and I heartily encourage you to add your name to the list. But, it seems to me that a better understanding of why they decided as they did might give us a possibly more successful tack to assist our petition efforts.

The IOC listed four primary factors contributing to dropping wrestling:

1. Ticket Sales

2. Ratings

3. Anti-Doping

4. Global Participation

If we take these in order we can see that there may be a bit more that we can do beyond the petition (again, sign those petitions, folks, every little bit helps--this is just an old man making a stab in the dark to assist the petition effort). If we think of these proposed efforts in the long-term we realize we have four years to lay the groundwork for the proposed strategy.

One--Ticket Sales. There is no doubt commerce is at play in this decision (as it is in most decisions, and there's nothing wrong with that, it makes the world go round). The following suggestion is the most costly and the least doable for the vast majority of us due to high ticket prices and travel costs but, butts-in-seats tells the IOC that people like the product. The more butts in seats the better. No-brainer there.

Two--Ratings. This is directly related to ticket sales. NBC has held the broadcasting rights to the Summer Olympics since 1988 and their contract extends through the 2020 Summer Games which is mighty good news for what I'm about to propose.

NBC pays high dollar to broadcast these games, they make back that invested dollar in advertising sales. Advertisers prefer to put their dollars where the most viewers will be parked (the at home version of butts in seats). Ratings have taught NBC and their prospective advertisers that folks at home are not watching wrestling (at least not the real stuff). It doesn't help that wrestling is often shunted to unusual air times, but ,again, that is a result of low ratings therefore low priority on the airtime charts.

Proposed Ratings Solution #1--Actually watch wrestling when it is broadcast. Teach NBC that there are at home butts in seats and then they may have something to sell to their advertisers.

Proposed Ratings Solution #2--Most folks these days do not use traditional forms of media, meaning that rather than parking themselves in front of a TV they will consume media via YouTube and other outlets. The problem here, NBC and their advertisers get no percentage out of this. Viewers pursuing free/no skin in the game outlets are essentially voting with their dollars saying, "Yes, I like wrestling but not enough to keep it alive via my actual pocket change."

What I am proposing here, doesn't even cost money--just the prospect of potential money that can be shown to advertisers. So I suggest when you use alternative media to view the 2016 Olympic Games, skip the non-NBC content providers where folks are simply skimming off of NBCs efforts and view at NBCs website. Sure, you may have to suffer though a commercial or two (brought to you by folks who care enough about the Olympic Games to put their money where their mouths are) but the tabulated views on that NBC site that can be tagged directly to wrestling tell a valuable story. These views, if in healthy enough numbers, can inspire a content provider (NBC) to ask the IOC for a re-consideration of a potential revenue source.

The above decisions seem to me the ones that provide the most bang for our buck, for when we put our money where our mouths are we are voting with our dollars. And dollar votes are mighty persuasive. Asking for something for free or skimming off of others' efforts, well, if I can't say something nice...

Three--Anti-Doping. To be frank, there's little you and I can do about the prevalence inside the game beyond fostering an atmosphere of hard-work and better technique as opposed to Lance Armstrongish behavior.

Four--Global Participation. The IOC points to the fact that wrestling participation at the collegiate and under level is down. This last reason for why the games have been dropped seems a bit less important as the Pentathlon is still in and when's the last time you went to a high school Pentathlon Meet. Not giving the Pentathletes out there a hard time, I actually enjoy most of the combined event sports--just pointing out that the last reason strikes me as the weakest. My guess is that all of the commerce reasons really drive this decision.

But, that doesn't mean that we can't attempt to address participation by fostering and promoting wrestling at the levels the IOC claims to be concerned about. My guess is that many of us already do just that.

In closing, we have four years to sign petitions (which you should do) and decide if you've got enough bucks to head to Rio to actually attend the wrestling events. Failing that, I think we could all at the very least commit to viewing wrestling via NBCs outlets to give them hard fast data that says, "Hey, folks are watching this after all."

If you feel there is any merit to the propositions, feel free to share.

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