Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Wrestling Cut from Olympics

Jacob Raschka
Wrestling Cut From Olympics
About a year after the 2012 olympics, the international olympic committee decided to drop wrestling from the 2020 olympics. Due to wrestling being an unpopular sport and not creating the sales other sports had. From an article from yahoo sports an IOC spokesman explains why wrestling was cut,"This is a process of renewing and renovating the program for the Olympics," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said. "In the view of the executive board, this was the best program for the Olympic Games in 2020. It's not a case of what's wrong with wrestling, it is what's right with the (other) 25 core sports." . With wrestling being cut there was an open spot on the list of sports in the 2020 olympics. A list was made with multiple sports including, wrestling, squash, baseball/softball. The olympics make a lot of money however they cost alot to make happen, so they want to put sports in that will supply them with the greatest chance of high profits. Even though wrestling was in the first olympics, the IOC did not care since wrestling was not making as much money as other sports. As time went on consumer tastes changed and wrestling was not popular.  As time went on fans and athletes from those four sports tried to increase popularity and demand for the their sport so it would be included in the 2020 olympics. One of the things wrestling did was to adjust to consumer tastes was to change rules to make it more fun and exciting to watch. The reason wrestling did this is because consumers (the people watching on the tv) play a big factor of what sports  are in the olympics. If a sport gets a high viewer rating it is gonna be a forsure sport in the olympics, but one that is low in viewers will be on the chopping block. By changing the rules people can more easily watch and enjoy wrestling, which will increase viewer ratings. Less than a year later the IOC board met and voted a sport into the olympics. The sport voted back in was wrestling. In the end wrestling was voted back due to increased demand for the sport and the IOC saw that as a better money making opportunity than the other sports.


Sources:

"Wrestling Gets A New Hold On Olympics, Avoids Being Cut." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.

"Wrestling Dropped from 2020 Games." ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.

"Wrestling Reinstated as an Olympic Sport for the 2020 and 2024 Games." N.p., n.d. Web.

14 comments:

  1. This is an interesting piece, how wrestling was apart of the first ever Olympics, but now cut from it, as if everyone has forgotten about it. From an economic standpoint, I wonder if the demand for wrestling will increase, causing more and more consumers to eventually possibly protest this, since it has been removed. Or will sales continue to increase from the other sports they have replaced wrestling with? Also Boys Basketball Game @ Pewaukee High School, 7:30 pm.

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  2. Wrestling is agreeably becoming less popular. This is unfortunate for many people who wrestle or enjoy watching it. Personally I believe they should not be pulling wrestling from the Olympics, as it was one of the first original sports introduced into the Olympics. Rather, they should be pulling a different sport with lower ratings that have not been in the Olympics as long. Also, as wrestling evolves, it may become more interesting to the viewers, creating a more viewed a popular sport. In the end, I believe what really matters is what the Olympics Committee wants, and that is to make money. Therefore if wrestling is no longer making enough money to profit off of, then they would need to cut wrestling from the Olympics like they are currently doing.

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  3. This is interesting because I knew it got cut, but I didn't know it was brought back. It makes sense to make rule adjustments to make the sport more watchable as well. The Olympics is pretty much the highest a wrestler can make it nowadays, so I'm sure the wrestling community was very happy about this. It will be interesting to see what the ratings are for the next Olympics. I'm not sure if the demand will increase because I never heard of the rule change and most consumers haven't, but maybe the ratings will increase over the next event.

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  4. I think that an event this big should always keep its roots. As wrestling was one of the first sports to be in the Olympics, there were other sports that were added afterwards that could be cut, like ribbon dancing. I remember hearing this when it was first decided and all of the uproar from those that wanted wrestling to remain in the Olympics. Hopefully the committee will realize that wrestling is a bigger sport than they realize and keep it in the olympics.

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  5. As a wrestler, when I heard about the sport being dropped from the Olympics I was very disappointed because of the history that it has behind it and how challenging of a sport it is. And all of a sudden poof it was gone, I really enjoyed being able to watch wrestling in the Olympics because you are watching the best of the best duke it out for the gold medal and the title of the best wrestler in that weight class in the world. Now that they voted it back in with a few rule changes it has brought more people to watch the matches and bring in a bigger profit. Im glad that they brought the respected sport of wrestling back into the Olympics to continue its legacy as one of the oldest sports to still be in the Olympics.

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  6. I knew it got cut, and I was upset that it did because of how popular it was, and how long it had been in the Olympics; but I had a feeling it would come back as well. The IOC doesn't understand that their are a lot of supporters in the world for wrestling that have a passion for it, and by discontinuing the sport in the 2020 Olympics they are cutting a huge portion of the revenue out. Yes, there are many different sports out there that people would enjoy watching in the Olympics, but not like wrestling. They believe that by introducing a new sport they will increase their profit but they would be lucky if it stayed the same. But think about this, maybe the IOC said they were going to discontinue the sport as a scare tactic, to bring in more viewers, ultimately bringing in way more profit. Brilliant idea.

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  7. Popularity definitely has to play a factor into which sports get chosen to be played in the Olympics. This is in order to create enough profit to outweigh the immense initial cost of building the facilities and other arenas for the games. While wrestling may have been taken out due to its lack of popularity, the changes in rules, I am not familiar with what those would be, must have been effective if they made the sport more entertaining. This tactic must have proved to work as the newly marketed version of wrestling appealed to the IOC only a couple years later, putting it back in the Olympic games.

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  8. I can easily relate to this because I participate in a sport that isn't very popular. I think its interesting that you mentioned it cost a lot of money to put together the Olympics. And I would've thought that wrestling would actually attract quite a few people. Overall great topic! It was very informative, and gave me the insight to understand something I've never really thought about.

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  10. Even though I don't really care for wrestling that much, people still spend their whole life training for the Olympics. For some its the only sport or "job" they know how to do. I'm not a big wrestling fan, but the people that are fans are going to be quite furious. It seems like the only type of wrestling people like to watch is the fake wwe wrestling where people hit each other with chairs and through each other threw tables. People just want to see other people get hurt. You don't seem too many injuries from real Olympic wrestling compared to the fake wwe wrestling where people are getting hurt left and right. Violence makes people happy and entertained.

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  11. Wrestling has been a popular sport for years but has decreased in popularity over the years. The IOC needs to recognize that wrestling is a huge part of the Olympics history and should be included in the 2020 Olympics. Instead of the IOC just dropping the sport all together people and wrestlers should try to make it popular again and increase the number of people that want to watch this sport so that it can continue being a sport in the Olympics.

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  12. I had never knew that they had been cut before. I thought this was still going on with Jordan Burroughs, Kyle Dake, and David Taylor being or are Olympians. I do think that is important that they still keep this considering they still have NCAA tournaments showing. We have some of the best Olympians like Rulon Gardner who won his match by 1 point against karelin. This is the kind of this the kind of topic the people need to realize and I think you do a great job of bringing this up.

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  13. I can understand why wrestling was cut in the first place. The olympics is a giant event, that must cost millions of dollars to fund. In order to keep the event going, the event itself must make at least as much as they spent on the whole event, plus enough to help the funding for the next year. If wrestling was not creating enough revenue, it would definitely make sense to cut it from the program.

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  14. This very interesting. The sport has been one of the original sports that were in the Olympics. It seems weird that even with not a lot people watching but I believe that they don't need to cut the sport because they have had it in the games for a very long time. I can understand why they are remove it but then they would need a sport to replace this very popular sport.

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