The Olympics have only been going for a few days now, but the reported number of viewers and visitors to the Games’ main site are staggering. I could try to paraphrase the information from Sports Business Daily, but I might as well just pass along the words it e-mailed on Sunday:
Through two nights of Olympic coverage, NBC is averaging a 16.2/30 primetime fast national Nielsen rating, up 22% from Athens in ‘04 (13.3/25).
NBC’s Beijing Games coverage is on pace to be the most-watched Olympics in history, as through two days, NBCU’s family of networks has attracted a record 114 million total viewers. That is four million more than Atlanta in ‘96, which was the most-watched Olympics in history, and nearly 20 million more than Athens (95 million).
Through two days, NBCOlympics.com has totaled 132.6 million page views compared to 17.9 million page views for the first two days of the Athens Games, an increase of 641%.
We’ll see where things go from this point, but with the increase in features being offered, the constant growth in Web surfers and at least a couple of compelling and quite well-covered American storylines (Michael Phelps’ pool dominance and the men’s basketball team’s attempt at redemption) bode well for the continuation of strong consumer numbers.
Along with ESPN’s continued support of the X Games (the winter version launched in 1997, two years after the summer event), NBC’s Dew Tour — part of the Action Sports Tour — is in its fourth year, and that venture is expanding.
In late May, NBC announced a partnership with MTV that will more than double the number of hours of AST programming produced for television a year — from 33 to 70. NBC will also feature the first winter Dew Tour event later this year.
In addition to the networks’ involvement with action sports, the Olympics have also adapted some of these formerly fringe sports to fit within their scheme. The 2006 Games in Turino, Italy, brightened the star of snowboarder Shaun White, and the upcoming summer Games will include BMX racing for the first time. In 2010, the Vancouver winter Games will incorporate Ski Cross racing, and Gary Ream — director of Woodward Camp, which brings kids together to learn and practice action sports – told Sports Business Journal he believes that BMX freestyle could make it into the 2012 London Games.
Now, all that said, how well can action sports fit within the fantasy format?
“It might be tough to do fantasy wise,” says Rick Cordella, general manager of fantasy sports for NBC Sports. “I’m sure we’ll take a look at it, though.”
A few things might make the fantasy adaptation tough. For starters, “action sports” encompasses quite a broad range of events. At the least, it would be challenging to figure out how to commonly score athletes doing skateboard stunts, racing motorbikes and surfing. Breaking them down into games within the individual sports might make each too small to be viable or combining all the results a bit unwieldy. Maybe a solution could be drafting one athlete from each sport in a broad event and combining their final tallies to produce your team’s score.
That brings up the next issue, though. Action-sports events can be quite spread out, varied and somewhat infrequent. The time between competitions could chip away at the interest of participants, and the variations in format between events could make a game that spreads over multiple events nearly impossible. Maybe the end result is an event-specific contest, such as that introduced by NBC Sports for this year’s Olympics.
The biggest hurdle might be for any fantasy-game provider to truly understand the product while reaching out to a rabid fan base. During the same SBJ group interview that included Ream, Issa Sawabini — a partner with Fuse Marketing and an expert in youth marketing — said of targeting action-sports fans, “If you’re not in it to do it in … an authentic way … then, frankly, you shouldn’t be there because you’re going to do it wrong and you’ll probably hurt yourself.”
Sawabini was talking more directly about brand marketing, but the same could easily be true for fantasy-game purveyors.
Still, despite any impediments, the recent growth in both action sports and fantasy sports makes a melding seem inevitable. Fantasy hosts already exist for motocross (at least two, in fact) and surfing.
Whether fantasy needs to follow those models and approach these sports separately or someone can figure out how to gather them under a single umbrella could be all that stands between you and negative points the next time Danny Way wipes out.
The recently completed X Games and the rapidly growing fantasy sports industry have to make one wonder: How long until the two really connect?
the first time. In 2010, the Vancouver winter Games will incorporate Ski Cross racing, and Gary Ream — director of Woodward Camp, which brings kids together to learn and practice action sports – 
