That’s right you heard it here fir….well probably like 30th, but whatever. The US Olympic Committee today announce they are officially changing their name to the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee. While this is mostly a symbolic move, it does follow a nice pattern of bringing more attention and credibility to the sports we care about. Most recently of note is the increasing the payout for Paralympic medals to equal those of their Olympic counterparts.
Now you may ask yourself, “but BA, what does this actually mean for wheelchair rugby?” To which I would say…probably nothing in the short term. What this brings to the whole Paralympic movement will be noticed first. Having the word prominently displayed brings more recognition and, as I said before, credibility to the sports. More importantly this shows a perceived increase in the value of sponsoring Paralympic sports and athletes.
While mainstream Olympic sports bring in hefty sums of money, even during off years, Paralympic sports, specifically wheelchair rugby draw quite a bit less. The field is fairly crowded for new entrants and lower value sponsors in the Olympic arena. Moving the banner of Paralympics up to a visual equal to the Olympics provides these outsider sponsors a new area to get the most bang for their advertising buck. I’m sure it’s way cheaper to be the title sponsor of a Paralympic team than it is to be the title sponsor of an Olympic team, for now.
In this rare occasion trickledown economics does occur. The more money in the Paralympic wallet, the more money in USAWR’s. The more money they get, the better they’ll be able to get seen, and this will help bring more fans to the sport as a whole. Hopefully from there, the cycle will continue.
See the USOPC’s full press release here.
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