Mumbai: India’s miniscule participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics at PeongChang, South Korea not with standing, at least 73% Indians say they are interested in the 2018 Winter Olympics, being held between Feb 09-25, 2018, as per the Ipsos Global Advisor Survey.
“India this year is participating in two categories – Jagdish Singh in Cross Country Skiing Men’s 15 KM freestyle; and Shiva Keshavan in Luge, Men’s Singles – despite that, for a sports enthusiastic nation like India, such huge interest in Winter Olympics is not surprising,” says Parijat Chakraborty, executive director, Ipsos Public Affairs.
Viewership is likely to be fractured across viewership platforms, with Indians using multiple platforms to catch the Winter Olympics – 51% said they’ll will be glued to their TV Sets; 49% will watch on the internet; 31% will watch on their smartphones/ mobile devices; 13% will access Winter Games on their tablet devices like the iPad etc; 11% will give the games a miss; and 9% said they were undecided. So, many will watch on all or a combination of platforms.
So, which games are on the radar of Indians?
Interestingly, Luge and Cross Country Skiingare low in the pecking order – stealing the march over them for eyeballs are:Ice Hockey (27%), Other Sports (14%), Speed Skating (11%), Ski Jumping (10%), Figure Skating (8%), Freestyle Skiing (7%), Snowboard (7%). Others being -Short Track Speed Skating (3%), Cross Country Skiing (3%), Alpine Skating (2%), Bobsleigh (2%), Luge (2%), Nordic Combined (2%), Biathlon (1%) and Skeleton (1%).
Across all the 27 markets surveyed, sports with highest interest are – Figure Skating (23%), Ice Hockey (13%), Ski Jumping (11%), Snowboard (6%), Speed Skating (6%), Alpine Skiing (6%) among others. SouthKoreans will be most interested in watching Short Track Speed Skating (32%) and Figure Skating (26%). The US is most interested in Figure Skating (32%). China in Figure Skating (28%).Canada is interested in Ice Hockey (46%);Sweden too in Ice Hockey (32%); Russia is interested in watching – Ice Hockey (29%), Figure Skating (27%) and Biathlon (24%) etc.
Some more interesting findings:
- 53% Indians say they will miss work to watch the 2018 Winter Olympics.
- 69% Indians feel there is too much nationalism on display during the Olympics.
- 56% Indians are worried that a terrorist attack will happen during the Olympic Games.
- 61% Indians are worried that North Korea will do something provocative during the Olympic Games.
- 73% Indians feel that corporate sponsorship has made the Olympics too corporatized.
- 66% Indians say they are absolute fanatics when the Olympics take place – they follow it as much as they can for the sports they are interested in.
