This summer was one of the hottest in history in Tokyo. The daytime temperatures were hovering near 100 for days at a time, and meteorologists warned that the searing heat is typical for Japan in late July/early August, so it can be expected again two years from now when Tokyo hosts the Olympics. Which has led to some people asking why the Olympics are being held at the hottest time of the year.
When Tokyo first hosted the Olympics in 1964, they were held in October to avoid both the summer heat and the September typhoon season. A lot has changed since 1964, though. And holding an Olympics in October is impossible now.
The obvious reason for this is television. The IOC gets most of its money from the various TV contracts around the world (NBC is their biggest revenue source), so it's understandable that they take what TV wants into consideration. And both NBC and the European broadcasters want the Summer Olympics to actually take place in the summer, when they have absolutely nothing else going on!
If the Olympics were held in the fall, they wouldn't be able to dedicate hours upon hours to coverage because it's football season in both the U.S. (college and the NFL) and Europe (professional soccer). And, if you were to push them back to October, you're dealing with postseason baseball, too. That simply doesn't work for these networks that paid millions (or, in NBC's case, billions) of dollars for Olympic TV rights.
And why do you think the Winter Olympics are always in February? Yes, that's usually the optimal time weather-wise in the host city (Sochi notwithstanding), but it's also the best time for the TV partners. The Super Bowl is right before they start (although, in 2022, the Winter Olympics start before the Super Bowl for the first time, which I'm sure NBC is not too pleased about) and they're over in time for March Madness. That's not by accident.
TV is the exact same reason the World Cup is always held in the summer, too. Which is one of the reasons the scheduling for Qatar 2022 is incredibly inconvenient. When they were bidding for the rights, FOX was expecting it to be played in the summer. Instead, it's right smack in the heart of football season, and they have to try and schedule the World Cup around it. As compensation, FIFA gave them the rights to 2026 for free (even though, with that World Cup set for North America, they would've made a fortune bidding it out).
Putting this into a historical context (and bringing it back to Tokyo's first Games in 1964), the Olympics haven't always been in the now-standard July/August timetable. The 1956 Olympics in Melbourne actually took place in November and December, right in the middle of the Australian summer. Meanwhile, two consecutive Olympics in the 60s, both Tokyo and Mexico City 1968, took place in October. Then the 1972 Munich Games started in late August and ended in September (think the US Open timetable).
By 1976, TV's role in the Olympics had been firmly established, as had the July/August schedule. Since then, the Olympics have only taken place outside that window twice. In 1988, when Seoul would've had to deal with the same situation as Tokyo had they not been later, and in 2000, when the Games were in Sydney and were actually held in the Australian spring. The Rio Games were also in the Southern Hemisphere, but Rio's climate made holding those Olympics in Brazil's winter possible.
NBC was the U.S. broadcaster in both 1988 and 2000. In 1988, they were able to take advantage of the time difference and not disrupt their schedule too much (they just moved the premieres of their new shows a week later). But, since they also had NFL coverage and many of their top football announcers were in Seoul for the Olympics, they had to bring in replacements. NBC didn't have the NFL from 1998-2005, so they didn't have that problem in Sydney.
What am I getting at here? Well, it's simple. TV's influence over the Olympics makes it practically impossible to move the Games outside of that July/August window. Not to mention the disruption it would cause to the regular season schedules of the various sports (as well as the athletes' training cycles)!
So July and August in Tokyo it is! But the heat definitely poses a potential problem, for both athletes and spectators. They've proposed various solutions, such as early/late starts for endurance events, misting stations along courses, some sort of heat-reducing roads that I don't quite understand but I'm sure they actually have since we're talking about Japan here, even keeping outdoor athletes inside until the last possible moment to limit their time in the conditions.
One proposal seems to make the most sense, though. Daylight savings time. Japan is one of the few countries that doesn't move its clocks ahead an hour during the summer months. But Tokyo Olympic organizers have proposed adopting daylight savings time as a way of beating the heat. The IOC has endorsed this idea, which would be good for TV, too, even though that's not the primary reason for their support.
Most Japanese businesses are opposed, but the people seem to be OK with the idea, so we'll see how things ultimately end up with the daylight savings time thing. It definitely does seem like the most logical solution, though. Even if it's just an hour or two, that can make a big difference. Especially since it's a safety issue.
It just seems so obvious that Japan adopting daylight savings time is the smartest idea. If it'll make the athletes and spectators at the 2020 Olympics more comfortable, how could they not to do it?
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