Ebb and flow of Olympic cash ebbing

Reporting from Europe reveals that winter sport federations, which would include the World Curling Federation, can expect a smaller quadrennial revenue injection following Beijing 2022.

insidethegames reported on the recent International Skating Union Congress in Thailand, where ISU director general Fredi Schmid revealed the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s payments to the ISU for contributing to the Beijing 2022 Winter Games are set to fall back below PyeongChang 2018 levels.

Schmid told the Congress that while “IOC incomes in the past periods were (USD $11.1 million) … unfortunately the IOC advised us that based on preliminary figures from Beijing the income … distributed among stakeholders will be lower.”

Schmid stated “(It will be) at the level of Sochi (2014), which means around $9.1 million per year.”

Confirmation would follow “later this year, we are not sure exactly how the incomes will end up.”

The presumption is that all winter sport federations will see the same revenue drop, including the WCF.

IOC figures show that distributions to international federations jumped to $209 million after Vancouver 2010 compared with just $128 million in the wake of Turin 2006.

Since then, the figure dipped back to $199 million post-Sochi 2014, crept back up to $215 million after PyeongChang and now, Schmid’s comments would suggest, is probably headed for another dip.

Sport governing bodies with a US dollar accounting currency—like WCF—may see less of a drop of IOC monies than those using the Swiss franc. There are additional pains, however, due to rampant global inflation, which was largely absent from Vancouver 2010 through last year.

According to insidethegames columnist David Owen, most winter IFs have been unable to find revenues that rival the quadrennial IOC cheque. Sixty per cent of World Curling income between 2018 and 2021 came from these payments.

WCF recently sought a new revenue stream by moving from the free YouTube streaming platform to the UK’s Recast, where users are charged micro-transactions to watch live and archived championship games in their entirety.

Owen also notes that Beijing 2022 “was billed as providing a magnificent, long-term boost for the winter sports industry by opening up a vast new market of enthusiasts in the world’s most populous nation.”

World Curling, which has pushed Chinese authorities to build grassroots curling facilities and themselves built a relatively strong profile on China’s Weibo platform, will no doubt hope to hold that sales pitch to account.

The WCF fiscal year end is June 30.