In a guest post, Adam Gostomelsky examines the parallels between the ongoing Winter Olympics in Beijing and this fall’s scheduled FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
With the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics underway, tensions are high due to the current political and human rights situation in China. Several athletes planned to boycott Friday’s Opening Ceremony and U.S. rightsholder NBCUniversal is proactively lowering ratings expectations by up to half depending on the time of day and platform. There is another upcoming large, once-in-four-years, sporting event that is covered in just as much controversy: the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Is it possible that Beijing might show us what Qatar could look like in just 10 short months?
Human Rights Issues
The Beijing Winter Olympics has been overshadowed by Chinese political activities both inside and outside of its borders. The ongoing Uyghur genocide in northwest China, the aggressive policies pointed toward Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mongolia, and the recent disappearance of renowned tennis star Peng Shuai following sexual assault allegations against China’s former vice premier Zhang Gaoli have embroiled the Games in political turmoil. Several countries, including the United States, are diplomatically boycotting Beijing. Qatar has seen similar issues become more readily visible to the wider world. The building of World Cup stadiums has resulted in the deaths of at least 6,500 migrant workers, according to one report from The Guardian. The recruitment of migrant workers, which account for 95 percent of Qatar’s workforce, has also come under fire for using the system of “kafala,” where workers give up their passports and cannot leave Qatar or change jobs without permission from their employers, a practice that is described as a form of modern slavery by trade union groups.
Some soccer federations have already started protesting, with both Norway and Germany donning shirts emblazoned with human rights slogans before World Cup Qualifiers. Denmark has gone a step further, releasing a statement saying it wouldn’t take part in any promotional activities at the World Cup “to mark the continuing struggle for the improvement of human rights in Qatar.” Instead of the normal logos of commercial sponsors, the Danish players’ shirts will display what the statement said are “critical messages.” This pressure has resulted in some changes, with Qatar eliminating “kafala” and introducing a monthly minimum wage of 1,000 Qatari riyal, in addition to some basic living allowances for some workers. Beijing has conversely stood steadfast, punishing those who speak out, such as China’s blacklisting of H&M, Nike, and Uniqlo following their public concerns of the forced labor and discrimination in the Xinjiang area of China.
While President Biden has initiated a diplomatic boycott for Beijing, the US Soccer Federation has not put out any protest yet towards Qatar. However, it is important to consider that there are dramatically different political relations between the US and Qatar than China. While Chinese political relations have remained tense for some time, Qatar has been an American stronghold in the Middle East. It is home to Al Udeid Air Base, the largest US military base in the Middle East, and has become the intermediary for talks between Western powers and various Middle Eastern countries and groups, such as Iran or the Taliban, which has operated an office in Doha since 2013. On Monday, President Biden designated Qatar as an official “major non-NATO ally,” allowing for even greater cooperation and investment into Qatar, a designation that only 17 other countries and Taiwan have with the United States. President Biden will be hoping this will alleviate concerns of Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas as tensions escalate in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
With this Qatar relationship in mind, it is hard to see the US Soccer Federation taking too big of a stance should they qualify for this winter World Cup. It will be interesting to see how FOX handles this situation, especially as it looks like NBCUniversal will not shy away from Chinese human rights issues. Molly Solomon, executive producer & president of NBC Olympics Production, told USA Today article that the network’s coverage “will provide perspective on China’s place in the world and the geo-political context in which these games are being held.” NBCUniversal will also have two China analysts, journalist Andy Brown and Chinese cultural historian Jing Tsu, to join anchors on the ground in prime time.
Hosting Issues
Costs for both the World Cup and Olympics have ballooned. Originally projected to cost $3.9 billion, the Beijing Olympics costs have soared to $38.5 billion, a nearly ten-time increase. Meanwhile Qatar has spent over $200 billion on their event. By comparison, Beijing’s Summer Olympics were $42 billion, while the previous three World Cup hosts, South Africa, Brazil and Russia, spent a combined $30 billion. Part of the reason for the astronomical costs have been the unique logistical problems in both Beijing and Qatar.
In Beijing, the Winter Olympics will rely entirely on artificial snow for the first time in its history. A Georgia State University report indicates that more than 49 million gallons of water, 130 fan-operated snow generators and 300 snow-making guns will be used to create the 1.2 million cubic meters of fake snow, prompting concerns about the environmental impact the Games will have, especially when considering there is already an ongoing energy crisis in China. Fake snow also makes a difference to the athletes competing. With a higher moisture content, artificial snow will ice up quicker, increasing the speed of going downhill and creating more harmful accidents due to the hardness of the ground.
For Qatar, there are still questions over how they will logistically handle the estimated incoming 1.2 million visitors to the small Gulf nation. FIFA has already made the unprecedented change of moving the World Cup to the winter months to avoid the summer heat, which could have reached temperatures of nearly 120 degrees Fahrenheit on the hottest days. In addition to the dramatic overhaul that this will cause on the traditional soccer calendar year, this change also brings one last key similarity between Beijing and Qatar, a first-time overlap with another huge television draw.
NFL Competition
With the extension of the NFL season, for the first time ever the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics will overlap. NBC Universal, which swapped Super Bowl years with CBS so it could carry both events in the same year, is planning on heavy cross-promotion. The biggest day in NBCUniversal sports television history will start with Olympic coverage at 8 a.m. ET until Noon ET when Super Bowl pregame coverage begins. When the Super Bowl ends at approximately 10:30 p.m. — 11:30 a.m. in Beijing — coverage will pivot back to the Olympics. NBCUniversal still projects less than stellar ratings for the second Olympic Games in just six months.
While the Qatar World Cup will not have to contend with the Super Bowl, it will be competing with the November and December slate of NFL games. A summer tentpole competing with the NFL is far from an ideal situation for FOX. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that no matter how the NFL competition affects their ratings, the change to a winter World Cup left FOX with a deal of a lifetime. In order to stave off any lawsuit that might have forced FIFA to open up their books (and expose any corruption) FIFA agreed to give FOX the rights to the 2026 World Cup without a bidding process for approximately $500 million back in 2015. Today, that deal looks to be one of the best in recent history, with the World Cup being expanded to 48 teams — which means more games to televise — and hosted mainly in the United States. So, while a winter World Cup will undoubtedly be inconvenient for FOX, there is a lucrative payoff coming four years later.
2022: The Year of Sportswashing?
2022 may be the year of troubled seismic sporting events, although unlike the recent problems coming from COVID-19, both Beijing and Qatar’s problems could be seen even during their respective bidding processes. While the IOC may have felt like Beijing was the “safe” choice compared to Almaty, Kazakhstan, FIFA’s shocking selection of Qatar, a nation with no soccer history or infrastructure, is marred by the ensuing revelations surrounding the bribery scandal that led to the selection. Sportswashing has rarely taken the spotlight so much in one calendar year.
