MUMBAI – International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach’s mantra, change or be changed, is apt.
The challenge facing the IOC, the Olympic Games, indeed the wider Olympic movement, is both fundamental and existential. All of it is a 19th-century construct. Owing to broadcast television, U.S.-driven corporate sponsorship and, to some extent, Cold War rivalries, it found its footing in the 20th century. Now it is struggling to find a way in our 21st century.
Television ratings are down. The sponsor program needs a far-reaching re-do. Change is not an option. It’s a must. It’s why, as part of his speech Saturday night here opening the IOC’s 141st session, Bach for the first time made extensive reference to the possibilities of artificial intelligence and, too, announced the IOC would study the creation of an “Olympic Esports Games.”
Change is one thing. But the IOC is furiously slapping at different currents, trying to find direction, not least about its own rules and about whether Bach or someone else ought to be in charge come 2025, when Bach, in theory, is due to step down.
The IOC president at Saturday’s session opening with the prime minister of India // IOC
Not even 20 minutes into the session Sunday, Algeria’s Mustapha Berraf proposed that Bach get four more years. A few others said, great idea. At one level, that has to be super-unclear why since, under Bach, the IOC members essentially have had all – repeat, all – their authority taken away. Until 2019, their key role was to cast a dramatic vote for host cities. Then he told them, you don’t even get to do that.
At any rate, after praise for Bach, Japan’s Morinari Watanabe, a potential presidential candidate, said, more or less, Mr. President, we are supposed to be about good governance, and the rules say 12 years. This was all prelude to Australia’s John Coates, the rules guru, reminding all that Olympic Charter change gets done in several steps, not just spontaneously, à la Berraf.
The way the IOC works, of course, all this was scripted.
This performance was a show designed to lay any groundwork for Bach-for-four-more-years at the assembly at the Paris Games, because the session after that, in early 2025, is due to be the one at which there would be a presidential election.
If one listened very, very carefully to what came about four hours later: Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, the former president of Croatia who now heads the panel considering would-be Summer Games hosts, said Summer 2036 decisions would be made by “new IOC leadership,” suggesting Bach is – as he has intimated – out in 2025.
Unless, of course, he’s still in.
There are arguments pro and con for Bach to get more time. Pro: he has led the IOC through a series of crazy challenges no reasonable person could have foreseen, including Covid, and the institution needs his stability. Con: 12 years means 12 years; to go past 12 years would make a mockery of his reform promises; it’s the kind of thing associated with the current autocratic rulers of, say, China and Russia who, you know, extended their presidencies beyond term-limit rules and accepted norms; if he stays, it means Olympic sport has not, even still, in this 21st century, reached a place of maturity.
AI comes to the IOC
This brings us back to the future, because in his speech Saturday night, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in attendance, Bach read this, saying it was generated by AI, artificial intelligence:
“In this future, the Olympic Games will likely become more inclusive, featuring a broader range of sports and athletes, and promoting diversity and gender equality. The Olympic Movement may also adapt to changing societal values, addressing issues such as athlete mental health and social justice, and striving to be a force for positive change on a global scale. Ultimately, the future of the Olympic Games promises to be a compelling fusion of tradition and progress, maintaining its status as a unifying global event while adapting to the changing values and expectations of the modern world.”
OK, so let’s immerse ourselves in AI. Scott Galloway, the future-forward entrepreneur and professor at New York University, runs an AI site called ProfG.ai. Ask it what you will.
This column asked ProfG.ai one simple question. The AI-generated response follows:
Maybe this ChatGPT thing is a work in progress? Let’s ask ProfG.ai again, same question:
This future thing. So many complexities. The IOC boasted here it now counts 110 million followers across social media. Did it mention, too, that context is everything? No? Maybe that is what journalism is for. The soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo has 110 million followers on Twitter alone. On Instagram, Leo Messi can count 489 million followers.
Along with the issues ProfG’s AI noted, the IOC is inconsistent almost beyond words in its messaging. “All of us are looking forward to Paris,” Bach said Saturday, “which will truly be Olympic Games of a new era: younger, more inclusive, more urban, more sustainable.”
So, one of the mantras is “more urban”? Yet for LA28 none of the five new sports to be OK’d here are “urban” in the way, say, of skateboard. The five: baseball/softball, lacrosse, flag football, cricket and, laughably, squash.
Reimagining everything to stay relevant
This is why whoever the president after 2025, the IOC and all facets of the wider Olympic movement need to re-think the product it is presenting. To cherry-pick the words of ProfG.ai, reimagine it. The program needs a thorough re-think.
The president – whoever he or she might be – ought to convene a Congress (the last one was in 2009, in Copenhagen) focused on the Olympic program.
To be blunt, young people are tuning out.
In that spirit, again to be direct: the issue is not whether one international federation or another, or for that matter several, will or ought to survive without an Olympic subsidy.
In the interest of sparking constructive dialogue, because as Bach observed Sunday in a different – but arguably related – context, one sparked by a technical presentation over Games “optimization,” the Olympics must remain “relevant to their times”:
Any sport connected to guns, boats or horses: gone.
Shooting especially has got to go. It’s wildly inconsistent for the IOC to proclaim that when it comes to esports, “killer games” are a “red line” it won’t cross but nonetheless still feature shooting on the program. It’s also absurd that untold numbers of schoolchildren, the IOC’s target demographic, have been profoundly affected by school shootings and yet shooting is celebrated on the program. No.
Certain combat sports can and should stay. Which? Wrestling, boxing and judo (judo lives the values). Now, add MMA. You want to connect with a worldwide audience? With an event that’s relevant? MMA. It’s primal. Easy to understand. What do you think they did in ancient Greece? Primal, people.
Before everyone gets all worked up — there’s a world of difference between shooting and MMA. Don’t even.
Basketball, volleyball and table tennis, and maybe more, should be moved to the Winter Games. The IOC announced here that, because of climate change, only 10 nations in the entire world could reasonably even think by 2040 about staging the snow sports of the Winter Games. The Charter currently says the Winter Games can only be snow and ice sports. Change or be changed – this means the entire idea of what can and should be the idea of the Winter Games.
To that end, cross-country needs to be added to the Winter Games. The days of worrying about the track and field federation having a disproportionate political impact on the Winter Games – that kind of retrograde thinking has to stop.
Assuredly, there’s more to think about. That’s what a Congress is for.
Now: what to do about esports.
Note the IOC did not say it was including esports in the Games themselves. That’s highly unlikely. It said it would look at an “Olympic Esports Games.” The IOC needs esports not only because literally billions of people are involved globally with esports but also because esports represents a new, potentially lucrative source of revenue.
It’s a slam dunk. Just ask AI.