- 13 Aug 08, 04:13 PM
Every four years, during the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, the President of the International Olympic Committee calls on the "youth of the world" to gather in the next Olympic city.
Presumably, it's a call addressed specifically to the athletes, because there isn't anything particularly youthful about the audience.
The average age of TV viewers for the Athens Games was 46! So the challenge for the IOC is to keep the Games relevant to a younger audience.
When I was a teenager, the Olympic Games were one of the most important things in my life. Once every four years, I would sit down for two and a half weeks and not move from in front of the TV. When I was 16 I even opted out of a family holiday to watch the LA Games in 1984.
Now I've got a mortgage to pay and kids to feed, the Olympics aren't quite the central feature in my life that they used to be, but they're still certainly one of the main highlights.
Capturing the attention of a younger audience is something every organisation, every business and every sport needs to do, because if you catch them young you're halfway towards keeping them onside as they grow older.
The My Games team bumped into Michael Phelps' mum the other day and asked her how old her son was when he started to take an interest in the Olympics. She's probably a major reason he's now the most successful Olympic gold medallist of all time.
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One way the IOC hopes to capture the youth market is to stage an inaugural Youth Olympics. They will take place in Singapore in 2010, and will have the same 26 sports as London 2012, but with fewer disciplines.
As well as BMX cycling, which is making its debut in Beijing, there will also be some innovative events such as beach wrestling. Excuse me? You mean what teenagers do on the beach every summer? That's an Olympic Youth sport? Apparently so, and to go with the Youth Summer Games, there will be a Youth Winter Olympics, and both Games will follow the traditional four year cycle.
It's all the brainchild of the IOC President Jacques Rogge, but can it work? Will a younger audience be attracted to the Youth Games? Tell us whether you think the Olympic Games are relevant to the "youth of the world" or whether the IOC is fighting a losing battle.
On Friday's edition of My Games we'll be looking into these issues and speaking to some young(er) webcammers to get their thoughts.
You can participate via this blog or you can e-mail us at mygames@bbc.co.uk.
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Comments
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Well Im 16, I guess that counts as 'youth'. I cant imagine how the Youth Olympics will even compare to the proper Olympics and its not something that I would particularly be interested in watching.
The Olympics is great, seeing the best from a variety of sports taking part against each other, seeing sports that are very rarely on TV.
The youth olympics? That will just be full of people that very few people will have even heard of. I somehow doubt that it will get much TV coverage either.
Finally - how on earth do they know the average age of TV viewers? Surely thats impossible to work out.
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The best way to get young people interested is not to insult their intelligence.
I too used to watch the Olympics avidly when I was young - 1976 and 1980 particularly. One of the attractions was the unbiased coverage of the commentators and the quality of their commentary. Sadly, the BBC's coverage of Beijing has been far too obsessed with concentrating on British competitors, when, often, they are not the main medal contanders, rather than showing the best competitors, and many of the commentators drafted in for various events are clearly lacking in knowledge or preparation for the events they are covering, (as well as far too many wideboy estuary accents - they are many fine regional accents in the UK; it isn't necessary to only hire commentators from the home counties.)
The style of the BBC's coverage is offputting. It's lack of quality will not attract younger viewers. Intelligence and high quality are what is required.
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Well, by definition a 'youth olympics' will not have recognisable names. But surely that is the point? Just to view future world champs and kids doing what they want to do .... is that not enough?
Oh, and the average age of viewers is calculated by what are known as 'surveys' ... difficult to comprehend I know.
As for the comentators. I think you will find that they know a heck of a lot more than you or me. Most have competed in said sports and I think you will find that knowledge comes above having a non-SE accent
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The Olympics is out of date, you can see them trying to get new sports in, but there are still some very irrelevant sports kicking around.
For example, Dressage and other Animals sports are no sports. If anything the horse or the trainer should get the medal.
Synchronized diving is only entered by proper divers for a possibility of an extra medal.
As well as this, the sports in the olympics are not taken seriously, boxing doesn't have the real best as they're pro, tennis - the top players are waiting for the US open, football the season is about start (or has started for European qualification)
Another example is the Horse (aerobics), while it may have been a staple in any school pre/post war, it is certainly not now, no one can relate to the technique or skill involved.
Things like table tennis have as much relevance as snooker in olympics, pub sports at best, not world beating atheletes.
The Olympics only starts when track and field starts, the rest is a sham, bar other atheletic sports.
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horse aerobics?????
and table tennis just happens to be one of the most popular sports in the world (if we had a world beater i guess you would feel differently)
when did i last see ping pong played in a pub?
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I'm afraid that the popularity of the Youth Olympics will be on a par with that of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest - see, you've never heard of it have you - even though its been going for 5 years!
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It'll probalby be something like the X Games here in the US, which I gather are hugely popular with the sub-adult set. If so, it will have zero interest to old fogies like me, but then that's the point I suppose!
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"Oh, and the average age of vieers is calculated by what are known as 'surveys' ... difficult to comprehend I know."
The problem with that, as with all such surveys, is that it doesn't actually give the real average age of the viewers, it gives the average age of the people who took the survey. Did you take that survey? Did anyone you know take that survey? I would answer "no" to both of those questions and I strongly suspect everyone here would and everyone we know would. So there we have it; 0% of people took that survey.
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Maybe the youth of today need more encouragement to participate in sports and providing a games where children can relate and see their peers competing at world class level might be the way to do it. I have been a fan of the olympics for as long as I can remember and as much as I dont relate to sports such as shooting and equestrian I still tune in to see how my nation are doing so are really thankful for the occasional biased viewing of the BBC. I also believe games such as mario and sonic at the olympic games are already increasing the interest among the youth.
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Im 16, and play hockey 4 times a week...And the Olympics is really the only time i get to see the really world class players, which drops my jaw.
But at the same time, it is most irritating when i stay up until half past three to try and catch some of the more entertaining events, such as the swimming, but am greeted with horses - joy of joys.
I know this is only because of the inavoidable time differences, but, as some of the above comments have mention, the likes of Skateboarding and Rollerskating are much more of a delight to watch.
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i) As a relative youngster myself (low 20s), I agree that the Youth Olympics hold little interest. Where's the tradition? The feeling that you're seeing the world's best in action?
ii) The average age of resident Britons is about 40. That's not too far off 46... I wouldn't have thought it was anything to worry about.
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I'm 21, and the prospect of a youth Olympics is uninteresting at best. I watch the Olympics to see the best athletes in the world, the idea of seeing their 13 year old counterparts isn't really for me.
I'm also uninterested in seeing Olympic BMX or skateboarding, however I have found myself getting excited about some of the less obvious sports such as Equestrian, I even found myself cheering, although admittedly when it was the German rider knocked down the fence.
I've been staying up all night for these Olympics as I did for Sydney in 2000, watching any sport that was on. There's absolutely no way I would do that for a junior Olympics.
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I'm working at a school in South Korea and every one of my kids (from age 5 - 13 or so) are transfixed by the olympics. It helps that the Koreans have gold medals coming out of every orifice at the moment, but the kids can name the swimmers, the archers, the judokas, everybody; they tell you how old they are, whether they like them or not. When I was 7 I remember watching the Barcelona games for hours, but doubt that I could have named anyone other than the likes of Linford or Sally Gunnell. It's refreshing to see kids that love sport so much!
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To answer the question as to whether a "Youth Olympics" will capture the imagination of young people and inspire them to follow a sport you only have to look at youth football, youth swimming, youth athletics and every sport where there are the younger catergories.
First of all there is plenty of participation BUT absolutely no audience relative to senior levels, hence it never justifies major media cover.
Young people don't aspire to be youth champions. Those that take up a sport seriously when young have ambitions only to be good at senior level. Youth competition is purely the pathway to the top.
Who is going to watch junior Wimbledon?
The public simply does not have an interest except for the best and that's at senior level.
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To answer 'robbyking', I should like to point out (as 'markb41' correctly mentioned) I have never seen a table tennis table in a pub and actually top table tennis players are extremely fit athletes.. Ma Lin, one of the very top players probably has a similar work out regime to Rafa Nadal.
The trouble with this type of thinking is that people tend to assume, having played on the outdoor table on holiday and beaten all their mates, that table tennis is easy and not much of a workout, but they couldn't be more wrong. It's the fastest ball sport from contact to contact and you need lightning reflexes to play at a decent level.
I would also mention that, though I don't know much about it, I think synchronised diving is one of the best spectacles to watch at the Olympics and I'm sure takes an incredible degree of athleticism and skill to master.
I do agree that tennis shouldn't be on the agenda (certainly not professional tennis), and the same goes for football and basketball.
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The youth olympics would give a great target for teenagers to aim for when they are not quite old/good enough for the senior olympics. I think it would be a tremendous opportunity for them. It should be properly financed from government/lottery/sponsorship sources. Whether anyone outside the sport watches it is another question, maybe the potential viewers in GB are too busy watching football, east enders, x factor, x box to realise this is a life changing opportunity for the people that participate. The culture in GB would be better if it embraced these sports more, especially in schools.
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I'm not sure if I qualify to give my opinion here (I'm 22... is that still young?), but I do know that if there was one way to put me off watching the games it would be by patronising me with a "Youth games" all of my own, because I'm not old enough to understand the big people's games.
Besides that, as someone has pointed out... surely 46 is roughly the correct average age for people watching the games? Especially bearing in the mind the bias created by retired over-65s watching large amounts of the games all day.
I would also agree with the previous comment that putting more of the best sports on, regardless of whether there is a decent Brit competing there or not, would make me more willing to watch.
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Sorry, by "best", I meant the best bits of each sport... not the "best" sports.... that might be a little too subjective!
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Branding is important, and an event held every 4 years in a different country with a different approach does not help the brand. The Olympics were originally held in Greece. Athens did a reasonably good job so make that the permanent site, strip the games of sponsorship (leads to brand dilution) and focus on the athletes, not the razz-ma-tazz.
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