Watching the 2016 Rio Olympics on TV, you may be noticing more empty seats than you expected. Sure enough, fans aren’t showing up at many events, and attendance has become an issue. But why is this happening, especially after the organizers of the Games boasted about selling more five million tickets?
Yahoo’s Greg Wyshynski is covering the Olympics in Rio, and talked to the organizers about why there have been attendance problems at events. They came up with five answers – scalpers (of course), a lack of food at the venues, sponsors eating their tickets, only wanting to watch the host country of Brazil, and a legal obligation to keep some seats empty.
Well gee, that’s certainly a laundry list of excuses! Let’s tackle them one by one.
Scalpers. Wyshynski notes that usually, scalpers inflate the prices of tickets and then they go unsold and unused. In Rio, scalpers are being arrested en masse and the tickets they possessed are being taken out of circulation as opposed to simply being eaten by the scalper.
Lack of food. This one is a bit ridiculous. Apparently in Rio, vendors are selling out of food at the venues, and the venues are then allowing fans to leave, get food somewhere else, and come back in. This seems like it would be an easy fix (get more food?), but this is Rio – nothing comes easy.
Sponsors eating the tickets. Here’s the exact phrasing of this issue from Rio spokesman Mario Andrada.
“We’re seeing some sponsors not living up their responsibility for tickets,” said Andrada. “There was a sense that some corporate tickets haven’t been used.”
Andrada also claims that some of the people who got complimentary tickets from the sponsors were put off by long security lines at the venues, so they’re just not using the tickets. That’s adorable.
Only wanting to watch the host country of Brazil. Beach volleyball matches have had attendance issues because fans have been showing up to watch Brazil, and then leaving after the Brazilians are done. OK, that’s fine – the two Brazilian women’s duos won five of their first six matches, with each advancing to the Round of 16. At least they’re supporting winners!
Legal obligation to keep seats empty. This is a regulation in Brazil that forces venues to not sell 6% of their seats in case a disabled fan wants to buy a ticket to the event on the day it occurs. The officials also claimed they were intentionally not selling all of the tickets to some events because of previous overcrowding issues during sports events during the country’s past.
So, how many of these excuses pass the smell test? All of them seem at least a little bit plausible, and the only one that seems like it could be controlled by Rio’s organizers is the food debacle. The other four issues aren’t going away over the last week and a half of the Games, however – I can’t wait to see a half-full venue watching Usain Bolt run the 100 meters next week.
[Yahoo]
