Summer Olympics: Games? What Games?
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, August 3, 2004

Why the Summer Olympics need an image makeover.
     I can hardly wait for the Olympics. All those rock-hard bodies and sexy foreign accents and intense, sweaty concentration.
     And, oh, I'm psyched to see the athletes, too.
     But I was thinking first about the security forces - the mounted police, the special operations teams, the coast guard.
     Hey, it's almost like the Democratic National Convention, without Teresa Heinz Kerry as etiquette ambassador.(Suggested new sport for the 2008 Summer Games: shoving.)
     Here we are, 10 days away from the games, and all anyone's talking about are the anti-terror tactics - the frogmen and anti-chemical experts and 1,200 surveillance cameras.
     Where are the heart-warming stories about the sprinter who was once told by a doctor she'd never walk again? The shot-putter who almost lost the use of his putting arm in a farm accident? The swimmer who overcame swimmer's ear?
     What's the official cell phone? Who's the mascot? (Actually, there are two, and they look like very pale, microwaved Gumbies, so the less you know about them, the better.)
     Does anyone even know where the Olympic torch is? Or was it confiscated at the Greek border by an alert airport screener?
     I'm sorry, sir, we're going to have to extinguish that flame, and please hand over your tweezers and Swiss Army knife, too.
     The Olympics are the Al Gore of events.You know they're out there, somewhere, aching? for attention, and yet . . .
     I called a marketing expert and asked him what the heck was going on (or wasn't, as the case may be):
     “It's not being marketed very well,” said Morris Reid, the managing partner of Blue Fusion, a New York-based youth-marketing consultancy agency.
     “They should be making it sexier and cooler - particularly for under-40 set.”
     That group, he explained, is being wooed by both political parties - and practically ignored by the Olympics.
     In fact, speaking of the Democrats and the Republicans, Reid blames the unprecedented amount of money spent on political advertising for drowning out the Olympics. In ad speak, John Kerry [related, bio] and George Bush are clutter, better known than swimmer Michael Phelps.
     Who's he? Oh, only the most-marketable U.S. summer Olympian, according to a new survey of sports industy and marketing experts conducted by the Sports Business Daily.
     “The whole safety issue is also a turnoff,” Reid added. “People are not planning on going, and when you're not planning on going, it turns out you're not watching either.”
     The ratings will tell, although I'll offer NBC an idea that might boost interest: in each event, allow one non-athlete to compete alongside the Olympians. The way the Games are structured now, it's hard to appreciate how fast an athlete is running or swimming without some normal person there for comparison. It's like appreciating even more the bigness of the Eiffel Tower if Aunt Edna is standing in front.
     In the “Reality Games,” one swimming lane would be reserved for Average Joe or Josephine, and viewers could follow his or her story - “She overcame a talent booker who told her she'd never get onto a Fox show, not even ‘American Idol' outtakes, to make it all the way here to Athens.”
     Either that, or get Janet Jackson to perform during the ceremonies. There's nothing like the hope of another “wardrobe malfunction” to boost ratings.