The IOC and Comcast cannot be happy with USA Basketball
The 2024 Paris Olympics is near and with that there is a question. What is an Olympian? Is an Olympian an athlete who gets to the top of the sport or is an Olympian someone who has the ability to make a lot of money from a name, an image and a likeness and sell that to a marketing partner? Caitlin Clark, who arguably has been the most talked about American athlete in the first half of 2024, is not going to be an Olympian this year. That could change by the time of the first USA game on July 29th. USA Basketball wants the best players on the court in France and has deemed Clark as not one of the country’s best players. USA Basketball is not exposing Clark globally and that could hurt Clark’s marketing ability globally and also make games less appealing for Comcast, which through NBC and various other program platforms, is spending an awful lot of cash on the Paris Olympics.
It is surprising that the International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and Brian Roberts, who runs Comcast, have not complained about the USA Basketball decision. The National Basketball Association Commissioner Adam Silver, who views the Olympic event as a marketing experience cannot be pleased. “I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed, but it would have been nice to see her on the floor,” Silver said. “There’s no question that she’s one of the most popular players, at this point, in the world. The ratings demonstrate that, the amount of interest we’re seeing in her.” Silver didn’t totally condemn USA Basketball. “USA Basketball has a very specific mandate about fielding the best possible team, from a competitive standpoint, and I accept that they all did their jobs the way they were instructed to.” USA Basketball may be missing out on the real pot of gold.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
