Comments on: Olympic Medal Counting

By: Global Urbanist

Global Urbanist — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 21:13:20 +0000

The real numbers game on who values the Olympics is the broadcast fees, not the medal counts…
http://www.olympic.org/Documents/fact_file_2010.pdf

In this category the United States wins hands down. For the 2010 and 2012 games $3.8 billion were raised through broadcast fees. This makes up over half of the IOC revenues. NBC provided $2 billion of of the $3.8 billion. Europe generated just under a billion in fees even with the Olympics taking place in London. Here is the breakdown in US dollars…
2,000,000,000 United States NBC
153,000,000 Canada CTV
60,000,000 Brazil Record
9,500,000 Latin America ESPN
8,000,000 Latin America Terra
750,000 Carribean IMC

153,000,000 Italy Sky Italia
767,000,000 Europe EBU

99,500,000 China CCTV
367,000,000 Japan JC
33,000,000 Korea SBS
2,000,000 Phillipines Solar
14,880,000 Hong Kong i-Cable
10,000,000 Rest of Asia ABU
5,250,000 Rest of Asia ESPN Star
90,000 Chinese Taipei Elta

21,200,000 Arab States ASBU/ART
16,000,000 South Africa SABC
2,000,000 Sub-Saharan Africa SABC

114,000,000 Australia Nine
10,500,000 New Zealand Sky Network

It doesn’t matter how you count the medals, if you are a member of the IOC you want the US winning. The IOC is looking to diversify its revenue streams for the next set of Olympics (why Chicago lost and Rio won). It will be interesting to see if the Olympic brand can generate value in South Asia, Russia, or South America as it has in the US, Europe, and Japan.

By: Ian Grhaam

Ian Grhaam — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:02:39 +0000

Hi victoria,

Where in Canada do you live or is the name a hint and located on Vancouver Island? there is very little of populated Canada from St John’s to Vancouver that doesn’t get snow.

Yes, congrats to the Canadian Olympic team. I had my crystal ball out in March of 2009 –
http://klondikeconsulting.com/blog/?p=410

By: Michael Wells

Michael Wells — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:41:20 +0000

I got a good chance to make a fool of myself publically and took advantage of it. I must have totally misread the medal counts, or else CNN.com had them wrong yesterday (doubtful). Anyway, I see that South Korea got 14 medals and China 11, both ranking above Japan.

By: Daniel Carins

Daniel Carins — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:34:54 +0000

The Guardian newspaper in the UK has been doing the same “alternative medal count” for decades…

By: Michael Wells

Michael Wells — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:57:54 +0000

Another interesting thought is that you get to #16 Japan before you get outside of North America & Europe. Japan has four times the population of Canada and dwarfs countries like Norway and Finland. For that matter the world’s two most populous nations, China and India, don’t show up at all. So maybe population isn’t a factor.

Why do the nations with the Alps and Rockies do well in winter sports while those with the Himalayas and Andes don’t? Is it because the sports themselves are of European origin and popular there, or that you have to be a rich country to afford high level Olympic training? Consider that the Olympic ban on professional athletes was originally to keep the lower classes out, as only those with leisure time could afford to train. Of course Japan is rich, so….?

All that said, congratulations to Canada for pulling this off, after what looked like a disastrous start and uncooperative weather. And for the medal count and coming from behind to be tops in gold.

By: Victoria

Victoria — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:47:01 +0000

Whoa, Lisa .. relax. My thoughts on the aim of this medal-count article, while presented with a lot of mathematical mumbo-jumbo, are that it was written as entertainment, a bit of humour, with tongue firmly in cheek. I may be wrong, it is possible, but it certainly felt like fun while I was reading it and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a rant about the politics of the United States of America. And as for “showing the drunks on your girls hockey team,” they aren’t drunks, they aren’t girls and it was the AP who chose to “show” them.

Oh and by the way Ian Grhaam, I am in Canada and am not now, nor have I ever been, snowbound (well, except for that one 4-day period in grade 12).

We did great and have much to be proud of, regardless of how you count the hardware.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:25:28 +0000

On a somewhat related note I wonder if on a per capita basis more Hollywood actors and singers grew up in Canada(i.e. William Shatner, Michael J Fox) than in the United States. They actually have a celebrity walk of fame in Toronto for the famous celebrities who are Canadian.

By: “Offtopic – Canada has won the Vancouver Winter Olympic Gold Medal Race” and related posts « Most Popular News Stories

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:08:14 +0000

[...] Olympic Medal Counting - Creative Class [...]

By: Johnny B

Johnny B — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:04:58 +0000

I sat down last night to do the same math that the author presented here. Granted, it’s very simplistic data and most of the arguments regarding such are certainly valid…However…my intent in scratching out the crude results, and what would seem the authors too, was NOT statistical accuracy…

It was ONE thing:

Shut Up America, enough already – You did NOT “Win” the Olympics – have a little CONTEXT…ay yi yi…

By: Ian Grhaam

Ian Grhaam — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 16:52:08 +0000

“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.”
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Michael,Ola and Olsen have some good points. To further those here are some additional thoughts on those points that are consistent with my own.
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While the USA may have 300 million people not all 300 million would have access or inclination to participate in winter sports. The population of the southern US is all but excluded from participation. Canada, Switzerland and Norway are all snow bound and the ability to participate is virtually 100%. Therefore comparing countries total population to medal performance is IMHO to broad a metric.
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An improvement might be to look a countries population with the access and ability to participate in delivering medals. The criteria for this metric could be populations of countries in snow bound areas.
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Better yet an analysis of the capability and capacity of a country to deliver medal performances would be more relevant.
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For example;
- Canada, Russia, Sweden have rich and deep hockey ecosystems
- Norway, Finland have tremendous depth in various cross country skiing sports
- USA dominates downhill skiing
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Evaluating the ecosystems and support systems that groom athletes for winter sports should yield the ability to predict with perhaps greater precision the dominant powers in winter sports. The countries listed in the example above are far more likely to produce medal results in their respective sports regardless of their population base.
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While medals per general population are an interesting metric it lumps too much inert mass with excellence to produce meaningful intelligence with respect to dominance in winter sport.