Short Form Nation Meets the Olympics
Short Form Nation Meets the Olympics
Is Paris a test case for the future of sports and Gen-Z?
The Summer Olympics start this Friday. One question hovering over the games is, will TikTok-loving, dopamine-craving Gen Z show up?
Or is the big tent sporting event simply never going to be the same?
For years, people grumbled that NBCUniversal didn’t ‘do the Olympics right.’ Instead of showing everything live, like say ESPN would, the media giant was known for its pre-taped profiles, pseudo-live events and drawn out packaging. The Olympics was treated not as a sport - the complaints went - but as dramatic programming.
And for years, NBCU laughed all the way to the mega ratings bank.
Now, the media landscape has clearly, radically changed. The last Olympics in 2022 were the lowest rated ever, even if the games’ overall mutliplatform reach was technically huge. Two years later, we’re that much further into on-demand, streaming centric TV place era.
Even more challenging for NBCU - we’re in the Short Form era.
To be sure, NBCU is agressively looking to cater to these new realities, by streaming 5,000 hours of live coverage on Peacock, while featuring highlight shows with the like Kevin Hart and Kenan Thompson, a Red-Zone-like Gold Zone program, which will jump from event to event as things heat up, and even an interactive program with the host of Call Her Daddy.
You could argue that NBCU is doing everything the fans have been asking for, while fully embracing the habits of phone-first young people.
The question is, will this be enough?
To try and get some answers, I had Sportico sports media reporter Anthony Crupi on my podcast this week. He said NBCU basically has no choice.
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“It's almost extinct, that idea of sitting down and watching the same screen with the people who gave birth to you,” Crupi said. “Like nobody does that anymore because everybody's got their own screens and everybody's got their own interests. And, you know, and frankly, the young kids coming up now, they the way they consume things is in little packets of entertainment and they gobble it up and then they move on to the next thing.”
Does that lend itself to a two-week surge of sporting events most people don’t follow on a regular basis?
Another question - how many young people have and watch Peacock? That streamer probably wouldn’t be brands’ first stop.
"For us, everything starts with the audience,” said John Terrana, Chief Media Officer at Vayner. “If we're setting up a campaign against Gen Z or younger folks, whatever their interests might be, we'll lean into TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Facebook, and Instagram Reels as the predominant formats. YouTube Shorts is very much the format of the moment."
To be fair, NBCU is experimenting with loads of short form Olympics content on these platforms. And there are signs that young people are looking forward to the games. From Business Insider: “A new study by United Talent Agency found that 78% of US consumers who plan to watch the 2024 Summer Olympics plan to do so on social media, which is more than any other platform, and that 41% intend to spend the most time engaging with Olympics content on social media.”
The problem is, they paid close to $8 billion for the broadcast rights to the games on its platforms. You can’t just put clips on YouTube shorts and hope you make enough money back.
Of course the Olympics aren’t all about Gen Z. NBCU can make plenty of money targeting Gen Xers and millennials with the games. And perhaps the Olymics, with their unique, every four years nature, aren’t the best barometer of Gen Z’s sports interest. However, for longevity’s sake, you have to wonder if down the road if the Olympics and other big sports will have to include these platforms, and or even bring on top influencers in as part of the distribution rights.
Because younger people aren’t necessarily predisposed to seek out ‘premium content’ on ‘premium platforms.’
“Real-life people don't think about whether content is premium or not,” said Terrana. “They just enjoy themselves. Video is video. If you're talking to an 18-year-old, they aren't thinking about whether YouTube Shorts or TikTok content is premium. The attention of the video itself and the format it's delivered in is what matters."
The billion dollar quest is, will these young people’s media habits evolve over time? Or are they fundamentally wired differently toward short form?
“I don't know if that's going to change,” said Crupi. “I think they basically grew up with a different set of tools by which to consume media. And to them, it would be kind of like if we were tried to play a CD on your grandma's old Victrola with the big horn.”
“One of the things I'm interested in is just, kind of as a cultural observer, is what is this gonna do with narrative? “
That’s a worrisome question for the Olympics, the sports world, and pretty much all of media.