The International Olympic Committee is increasingly isolated in its stance that the Tokyo Olympics should start as planned on July 23. 

Originally scheduled for 2020, postponing the games cost the IOC an estimated $800 million, and the total tab for the event could hit $25 billion.

John Coates, vice president of the IOC, said that the games would go on, even if Tokyo were under a state of emergency due to the pandemic.

That’s unwelcome news to many:

• A recent poll in Japan found that 83% of the population think the games should be canceled (43%) or postponed (40%). 
• Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son and Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani have both said that holding the games is not worth the loss of life and long-term stagnation that could come from an uptick in COVID-19 cases.
• In April, high-ranking Japanese politician Toshihiro Nikai floated the possibility that the games could still be canceled.
• Tennis stars Naomi Osaka, Rafael Nadal, and Kei Nishikori have voiced concerns about attending. Serena Williams said she won’t attend if protocols prevent her from bringing her 3-year-old daughter.

The IOC has already banned foreign spectators from attending, and is considering holding the games entirely without crowds. 

COVID-19 cases have spiked in the Japanese archipelago over the last month. The seven-day average as of Sunday sat at 5,272 new cases per day.

The media landscape is changing, and the premier media tabulator intends on keeping pace.

Nielsen has created Nielsen One, which provides a holistic measure of viewership across broadcast and streaming platforms. 

The analytics company has cash to work with after selling off retail shopping analytics company NielsenIQ, formerly Global Connect, for $2.4 billion to private equity firm Advent International. 

Nielsen One was necessitated by the tremendous growth in streaming uptake over the last year.

• U.S. streaming subscriptions nearly doubled from the start of 2019 to the end of 2020, passing 250 million.
• The average U.S. household subscribed to 3.1 streaming services in 2020, up from 2.7 in 2019 and 2.2 in 2018.
• Traditional pay-TV providers, namely AT&T and Comcast, lost 6.2 million subscribers in 2020 —a shift partly attributed to the lack of live sports.

Legacy broadcasters ABC/ESPN, CBS, Fox, and NBC ponied up over $100 billion to hang onto NFL coverage, but streaming services such as ESPN+ (14 million subscribers) and DAZN (400 million monthly users across all channels) have eaten into the live sports market.

Amazon will pay $1 billion a year through 2033 for exclusive “Thursday Night Football” rights.

Nielsen One provides an opportunity for a fresh start for the nearly century-old company. Earlier this month, the Media Rights Council said that Nielsen undercounted TV watching among 18-to-49-year-olds by 2-6% in February.

If you build it, they will come — especially when it costs half a billion dollars.

Oak View Group, a California-based development and investment firm, agreed to a joint venture partnership with City Football Group, the owner of Premier League champion Manchester City F.C., to build Co-op Live, a stadium that’s set to be one of the most advanced venues in the world.

The $495 million indoor music and entertainment arena will sit next to City’s stadium in Manchester.

Co-op secured naming rights to the venue last year in a 15-year deal worth as much as $125 million. Grammy-winning artist Harry Styles took a minority stake in the venue, which will open in December 2023 at the earliest. 

Co-op Live is one of several venues Oak View plans to open in the coming years.

• June: Climate Pledge Arena – home of new NHL’s Seattle Kraken ($1 billion)
• Fall 2021: UBS Arena – future home of the New York Islanders ($1.5 billion)
• Spring 2022: Moody Center – multipurpose arena at the University of Texas ($338M)
• Fall 2022: Coachella Valley Arena – multipurpose arena near Palm Desert, Calif. ($250M)
• TBD 2022: Savannah Arena – a multipurpose arena in Savannah, Ga. ($165M)

Oak View and City Football want to make Manchester a global sport and entertainment destination.

“We can push the boundaries by creating a magical intersection of sports, community, and entertainment,” said Oak View CEO and co-founder Tim Leiweke.

If it feels like Naomi Osaka is everywhere, that’s because she is.

As more brands rush to work with her, the world’s highest-paid female athlete is sharpening her design skills with a second Nike capsule collection.

The collection includes both on-court and off-court apparel — and is a part of Osaka’s reported $10 million-per-year deal with the brand. Osaka also helps with the North Carolina Courage’s design decisions as a co-owner of the women’s soccer team.

The four-time Grand Slam champion has partnered with at least 18 brands including Beats, Levi’s, Louis Vuitton, Hyperice, and bareMinerals, among several other big names.

Giving back is often a key feature of Osaka’s partnerships:

• She founded an academy with Nike to introduce young women to sports.
• She joined a judging panel with Louis Vuitton to spotlight an emerging fashion designer.
• Partnered with Basic Space to sell masks designed by her sister, with proceeds going to UNICEF
• Created a signature bowl at Sweetgreen — proceeds from all bowls sold on May 26 will support Asian-American-Pacific Islander organizations.

The 2021 Met Gala Costume Institute co-chair also added CEO to her resume after launching Kinlo, a skin care line made for melanated skin tones, produced with GoDaddy.

Between May 2019 and May 2020, Osaka made $37.4 million in endorsements and tournament prizes, according to Forbes. 

“You can practically hear brand managers thinking: ‘She is absolutely the right person to sponsor, right now,’” brand consultant Cindy Callop told the New York Times.