Politics and Olympics Mix with Brands Bracing for Protest Storms

Despite the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) insistence that politics has no place in sports, it always has. (And it’s not just limited to the Olympics.)

Just a few prominent examples:

• President Trump’s attack on football players who knelt during the National Anthem.

• President Biden saying baseball’s all-star game should be moved from Atlanta because of voting restrictions

• During the medal ceremony at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, U.S. team members Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raised a hand in a Black Power salute while on the medal stand during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner.

• In 2019, then Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey upset some NBA officials by voicing his support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protestors. LeBron James then criticized Morey for making the statement.

However, there is no sporting entity that comes close to the IOC for being a political-driven entity.

The latest edition of the Olympics will take place in Paris from July 26 to August 11. But the politics associated with the Paris games began many months ago with boycott threats by countries unhappy with the IOC’s decision to let athletes from Russia and Belarus compete as “individuals,” not members of a team from those countries. Of course, as a Russian Olympic official said the last time the IOC let Russian athletes compete as individuals, “Everyone knows that they’re still Russians.”

Despite the IOC’s dismissal of charges that the Olympics is a political animal, Olympic politics go back decades, the most notorious examples being in 1936, 1968, 1972 and 2014.

Here are some examples:

• In 1936, the Olympic powers decided that the games in Germany, which was the country chosen to host both the summer and winter competitions, should be held despite it being known that the racist Nazi regime had jailed thousands of Germans who didn’t measure up to what the regime said a German should be. They were sent to a concentration camp that became the template for others.

• In the lead-up to the 1968 Mexico City games, the government killed peaceful protesters in the Tlatelolco massacre on October 2, ten days before the Olympics opening ceremonies. The number of killed and wounded, mostly unarmed students, was estimated at several hundred killed and at least 1500 wounded. And that’s a conservative estimate.

• The 1972 Munich Olympics will always be remembered as the games in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed by Palestinian terrorists and for the IOC’s  president Avery Brundage’s decision to continue the games despite the slaughter. Brundage was also the Olympic official who white washed the Nazi regime and found no reason that the 1936 games should not go on, despite the protests of prominent U.S. politicians, sports officials and religious leaders. 

• In 2014, in Sochi, Russia, human rights groups’ protests against Russia’s discriminatory laws caused brands that were sponsors of the games to cancel their promotions. The protests, the cancellation of brand promotions and Russia’s response to the protesters dominated the news coverage before, during and after the conclusion of the games. 

• In 1980, 60 countries, led by the United States, boycotted the Moscow Olympics because of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan . It was the largest boycott in the history of the Olympics.

• Four year later, in 1984, the Soviet Union retaliated against the U.S. and led a 14-country boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics.

Since then, the IOC has awarded its games to the totalitarian governments of China and Russia.

France is a democratic country. But that does not assure that brands will not be attacked by protest groups in Paris. Already, in addition to some countries saying that they will boycott the games if Russian and Belarus athletes are allowed to compete, labor unions have threatened to strike.

Past Olympic history shows that protests are likely to happen before and during the Paris Olympics. And the 2014 Sochi Olympics shows that brands might be targeted. 

Time is short before the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympic Games commence. But it is not too late for sponsors to prepare a strategy to counter any negative situation that may occur.

Here are some suggestions on how brands should prepare and respond to protests groups and negative media. 

• It’s essential that Olympic account groups include an individual who has crises communications experience. But it is important to remember that every negative article does not have to be answered. Sometime the best response to a negative article is to do nothing and see if the attacks continue

• If an attack on a brand’s participation continues, the brand should respond with statements acknowledging that they understand the reason for the protests but explain why it believes that the Olympic Games are a force for good and should be supported. This can be accomplished via press releases and social media posts, but should also include face-to-face meetings between a brand representative and protest leaders. 

• Brands spokespersons should meet with protest group leaders and offer them space on the brand website to post an article about why they are against the games. Meeting with protest leaders and offering them an opportunity to state their reasons for protesting the games will not deter the protesters. But it will position the brand as an open-minded entity and result in positive media coverage.

• Brands spokespersons should make it clear to the media and protest groups that they absolutely approve of peaceful anti-Olympic demonstrations, even though the brands support the Olympics because they   believe it is a force for good.

PR practitioners must pay close attention to the negative coverage that the Paris Olympics has already received. While the negative coverage has thus far received minimum media attention in the U.S., it has been widely reported by the Associated Press and Reuters and is certain to receive greater media coverage in the U.S. as the games draw closer. Using the A.P. Reuters reporting as a guide, PR people s must prepare their clients with fast response tactics if they are targets of protesters. Just saying, “We follow the athletes” is not enough.