Olympics, Zika, and All Those Empty Seats

One of the more lasting TV watching-memories from the London 2012 Olympics wasn’t when Michael Phelps won his 18 gold medals in swimming or when Gabby Douglas won the Gymnastics All-Around Gold.

Perhaps the solution to the problem lies in the Olympians themselves.

Instead, it was the breathtaking sights shown in every venue for every event — rows of empty seats in the best locations. Audience gasps could be heard across social media, broadcast coverage, and in homes and offices across the world. Yet these seats were sold out. So why were they empty? Here’s how it happened and why it will likely happen again at Rio 2016.

Related: A Gold Medal Isn’t the Highest Goal

For sure, Zika is having an impact. As of now, 12 top athletes have pulled out due to Zika health concerns, including high-profile names such as Wimbledon runner-up Milos Raonic and the world’s top four golfers, Jordan Spieth, Zack Johnson, Jason Day, and Rory McIlroy.  

ESPN host Michael Smith has called for a boycott of the Olympics, saying athletes should withdraw due to a few reasons including Zika, but NBC Universal disagrees. It is taking a contingent of 2,000 employees to Rio to support coverage for the games. Less than a handful of employees have declined, including Savannah Guthrie, who is expecting a child. In addition, Richard Conway, the BBC sport journalist, is not going and a dozen other BBC staff are said to follow suit, according to The Daily Mail and other sources.

But even with 50 percent fewer people going from the U.S., Zika still won’t be the biggest reason we could see a repeat of empty seats.

Actually, it is the challenge faced by Olympic corporate sponsors, who are the recipients of tons of event tickets, many of which — as many as 43 percent — go unused.

We see company brands and logos splashed across stadiums, gymnasiums, running walls around the track, and other televised venues. In addition to signage visibility, these companies also receive rows and rows of event tickets — up to 10 percent of the total. While the marketing value of these tickets can’t be overstated when used for customer and employee appreciation and sales and marketing programs, we still see empty seats.

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In London 2012, there was no health care crisis, yet we watched athletes competing in half-empty venues with the host city scrambling for a fast fix. The London Organizing Committee (LOCOG) recruited the military with ticket giveaways to fill empty seats, and then stripped thousands of tickets from sponsors and redistributed them to the public for affordable resale. But in a climate of both global security concerns and the Zika virus, being generous in ticket giveaways or affordable resales may not be as easy this year (except for distribution with people already in the city).

So while Zika is definitely responsible for a loss of athlete participants and in-person Olympic fans this year, with over $1 billion in sponsorship packages for Rio 2016, again there will be more tickets sold than bodies in the seats.

Perhaps the solution to the problem lies in the Olympians themselves. Right now, each competing athlete from Team USA only receives two complimentary tickets for family to attend their competitions (any other events attended by family members will require them to buy tickets from venues open to the general public). Knowing the years, and often decades, of sacrifice in time and money by Olympic families — combined with the unused allotment of corporate sponsor tickets — we could create a new way to distribute tickets to show gratitude and appreciation to the Olympians and their families.

Related: Don’t Move Olympics Out of Rio — Cancel Them

The Rio Organizing Committee just announced an additional batch of 100,000 tickets for purchase, including previously “sold out” events like swimming, basketball, and tennis. These tickets will be made available to the public on Thursday, July 21, in what the organizers have dubbed “Super Thursday.” With this new development, the empty-seat problem may be larger than ever if these tickets don’t sell — making a solution even more urgent with the games approaching.

For Rio 2016, let’s hope that the excitement of Michael Phelps’ last Olympics or Simone Biles and the USA Gymnastics Team going for the gold will capture us all much more than rows and rows of empty seats.

Ken Hanscom is chief product officer of InviteManager, which helps companies share events, sports tickets, and experiences with their customers while proving the return on investment.