It's Wednesday, March. I'm Oscar Ramiraz from the Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily coronavirus update. Tokyo Olympics have officially been postponed until sometime next year. Now comes the big problems handling the logistics of moving everything, all the money that has been poured into the game so far, and what happens to the athletes who still need to stay in tip top shape for the games. David mac, editor at BuzzFeed News, joins us for how
coronavirus has impacted the biggest sporting events so far. Thanks for joining us, David, So we finally got some news that we were expecting a little bit more in recent days. The Tokyo Olympics have been postponed for about a year. We don't know exactly when they'll come back just yet, but they were set to begin on July, and amid this whole coronavirus pandemic, it just seemed all but certain that we had to shut it down, although there was
a lot of reluctance by the Internationallympics committee. David tell us about this new announcement. You're exactly right that it did seem somewhat inevitable. So it's sort of major international events one after the other, and big sporting tournaments get shot down over these last month or so, and the Olympics, as you said, were looming in July, and it just did seem like there was no way that this could
possibly go ahead. Yesterday you had the teams from Canada and Australia be the first to announce that they weren't going to send their athletes to Tokyo because they were worried about the threat posed by the coronavirus. But up until now, the IOC and the Japanese Olympic Ministry had been sort of adamant that this was going to go ahead. They weren't even at least publicly entertaining the idea of
changing the games. Just at the beginning of the month, I think the Japanese Olympics Minister said it was inconceivable the idea that the Games being canceled or postponed. But of course we had Shinzo Abe have a conversation that the Prime Minister of Japan rather have a conversation with the head of the IOC Thomas Park today, and he emerged to announce it. As you said, the games are
being put off for about a year. Seems like, as you said, no proper date just yet, but the io C and the Japanese have agreed that they will be held by next summer at the latest, and of course that is going to have major repercussions for the international sporting calendar. Now, this is the first time that this has really happened where it's been postponed by anything other than war. Basically, World War One and World War two impacted some of the games at that time, and these
games will still be called Tokyo despite happening. And there's probably just a simplicity element there of all the branding that's already been prints and organized for not just the Japanese but media companies around the world and things like that. So I think, probably to say the Japanese a bit of money, I've already spent at least about twenty six billion dollars on these games, they're going to let them
still call the games. And as you said, this is the first time that the timing of the games has been impacted by anything other than a war. I think, as you said, the World War is affected that they can out of the Games during the wars. Of course, there were the famous boycott during the Olympics during the Cold War, but we've never had anything a public health crisis postponent Olympic Games. Before let's talk a little bit about the money you mentioned twenty six billion so far
that Japan has probably put into this. But it's not just Japan themselves. I know NBC always hosts the Olympics here back home and the broadcasts all that stuff. There's a lot of money tied up there. There's a lot of money tied up in advertisements, there's a lot of money tied up in endorsements for athletes themselves. That this stuff will have to be put on hold for here probably.
I think the Japanese were expecting two billion dollars in tourism revenue to come through on this, So putting this on hold at this crazy time right now is just a huge impact, yes, exactly. And of course Japan has been hit by corona virus cases like everyone else in the world, so they've got a lot of money to spend on that on their health system at the moment as well. But I think, as you said, it's kind of important when you watch the Olympics and you get
caught up in the spectacle and the sport. Of course, it is a huge money making machine for the media markets around the world and the sporting As you said, think of all the advertisers that are paying to have their brands associated with the Olympics and to use the Olympic rings on things like that. We're going to be seeing a major impact in terms of just sort of chaos on the international media market as they scrambled to sort of reschedule things for currently we don't know when
at some point in the next year. And in terms of advertising and sponsorship, as you said, NBC had paid I think the biggest amount for any broadcast in the world, and there was discussion before today that potentially the games could be pushed back maybe a few months, maybe held
in another country and you know, another time. But of course, you know NBC obviously would impact the coverage of US football if we said that was going to happen in the six months, that would conflict with their TV calendar as well. So everything was kind of the interbeats get planned sort of years and years out and this is a just a couple of months out now, just sort of have to scramble to change everything is going to be a lot of work, that's for sure. I want
to talk a little bit about the athletes. The Tokyo Games were anticipated to be one of the largest yet more than eleven thousand athletes from two hundred and six countries, thirty three sports, three hundred and thirty nine medal events. It's a lot. But for the athletes themselves, you know, they're training so that they're at their peak. Once this is happening, this all kind of throws that for loop.
Now they have to keep this peak training period. Not that they're not training all the time, but this peak training period that they need to be at their best for the games has to be extended a here. Who knows how people's bodies hold up for another year. Rescheduling of Olympic trials, things like wrestling and swimming, those had to be postponed already, running of the marathon that's already been done. Do they redo those again? There's so much that has to go into just that part of it.
With the athletes, that's exactly right. I mean, I'm having a hard enough time working out in my apartment in coronavirus lockdown I think of these guys who have to make sure that staying in peak physical performance now or at least get back to it in time for the next Games. It's going to be a lot of work there.
But I think, as you said, the interesting thing as well as just how much sort of chaos this is going to cause on the international sporting calendar, as all the federations and associations of athletics and swimming, gymnastics and pinning else in between have to try to either work out what's going to happen, not just with the qualifying events for the Games, but the things that were scheduled for next year as well, and the tournaments and the
soccer tournaments and the basketball tournaments that were scheduled for next year, and what was supposed to be a non Games year. It's all going to be up in the air and have to get replanned. David Mac, editor at BuzzFeed News, thank you very much for joining us my pleasure. I'm Oscar Ramires and this has been your daily coronavirus update.
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