NBCUniversal, the long-running Olympic and Paralympic network in the United States, has committed to covering 1,200 hours on its television and broadcast programming, with just 70 hours from Brazil in 2016 and five and a half hours from the London 2012 Olympics first. The broadcast will be taped at the peak of the Paralympic Games on NBC’s main channel, four hours spread over three specials.
In another sign of the upscaling of adaptive sports for people with disabilities, the US Olympic Committee became the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
“Here We Are,” Jessica Long, A swimmer who has won 13 gold medals and will compete in her fifth Paralympic Games, told the New York Times when the name change was announced in 2019.
However, the resources for Paralympians, from news media coverage to sponsorship deals, hardly come close to what is available to Olympians. The large, cavernous press center in Tokyo is now a desert, and online searches for Paralympics news usually yield press releases from Games organizers. And while the prize money for American athletes has been equalised, some franchises have not.
Because spectators were barred from entering Tokyo, the USOPC hosted state-side viewing parties for two of each athlete’s relatives or friends. There were four Olympic meetings, each spanning five days, but only one was scheduled for the Paralympic Games. After some Paralympians and their relatives noticed the discrepancy, they said a second viewing party had been added.
The standard that will be surpassed at the Tokyo Paralympics will be the 2012 London Paralympics. To this day, athletes care about the packed and informed crowd, as well as the spirit of the gathering, fueled in part by Britain’s history as the birthplace of adaptive sports and by often brutal reporting from the Channel The fourth, which is sold on the BBC for competition rights.
