Cellphone cameras are ubiquitous at modern sporting events. Whether it’s a school swimming gala, the local rugby club squaring off against their bitter rivals or a national team fighting for tournament glory, every moment is a potential photograph. The Olympic Games are no exception. More than 10,000 athletes from 200 countries or regions are competing in 32 sports in this year’s host city, Paris, giving fans ample opportunity to fill their camera rolls with images of their favorite sporting heroes. And participants, too, are able to memorialize their time in Paris – far more freely than ever before. This comes after the Games’ governing body, the International Olympics Committee (“IOC”), unveiled new social media guidelines in December 2023.
Most of the guidelines are aimed at athletes; some relate to “accredited individuals other than athletes,” such as coaches, technical staff and countries’ Olympic committee representatives. They largely revolve around image rights, which are a broad bundle which may include rights over the use of the individual’s still, moving and animated images, name, signature recorded voice, catch phrases, and other associated trademarks. These rights can be worth a lot of money. For example, Indian cricketer Virat Kohli can earn anything between $2 million and $2.7 million per social media post.
Overall, it appears that the IOC has tried to strike a balance between protecting the media rightsholders while still recognizing the value of a participant’s image rights. It allows them to show more content than before, and more importantly, to acknowledge their personal sponsors, which play an important role in commercializing their images and building their brands. And at the same time, fans will get a fuller picture of their favorite athletes’ Olympic journeys than they have been able to before.
Social media at the Olympics
Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics have been described as “the first social media games,” marking the first time that the IOC created social media guidelines. These were refined for the London 2012 Summer Olympics. At the last Summer Olympics, hosted by Tokyo in 2020, athletes were not allowed to: (1) share any content from accredited areas used for a sporting competition or ceremony; or (2) post about their personal sponsors. These restrictions were designed, the IOC said at the time, to protect media rights-holders, such as TV stations and other big media organizations.
What Has Changed
Under the new guidelines, accredited participants can share their experiences far more freely on social media platforms during what the IOC calls the “game period,” from July 18 to August 13.
They may: (1) take photographs and record audio and video inside and outside the accredited areas; (2) share photographs on their personal social media platforms up to one hour before the start of the competition they are taking part in, and after they have left the doping control areas; and (3) share posts from the training and practice areas, the opening and closing ceremonies and the Champions Park, where athletes gather after their competitions to meet and interact with fans.
Of course, there are still some restrictions. Videos may not be live streamed, may not be longer than 2 minutes, and may not include the actual competitions, themselves. So, coaches cannot film an athlete in action and then share the video or photos. Athletes also cannot record another athlete training, or post highlights from their personal competition on social media. They can only share such images or videos from official media rights-holders’ accounts.
Not for Commercial Purposes
Media rightsholders are not left completely unprotected by the new guidelines. Participants are not allowed to post for commercial purposes throughout the game period. A post will be regarded as “for commercial purposes” if its purpose is to generate financial profit or promote any third party or products or services.
One of the main goals of the new social media guidelines is to balance the rights of media holders and those of the participants. This attempt at a balancing act can be seen in the new rules for non-Olympic partners – those who do not sponsor or have official merchandise licensing contracts with the IOC. Brands or companies in this category may run generic advertising during the game period as long as it has not been especially designed for the Olympics and has already been in the public eye for at least 90 days before the tournament starts. Advertisements in this category cannot be run more frequently during the Games than they have been previously. The IOC will apply these rules flexibly to enable “business-as-usual” campaigns.
Participants are allowed to provide one “thank you” message to each of their non-Olympic partners during the games period but it may not include a personal endorsement.
Layckan Van Gensen is a Junior Lecturer in Mercantile Law at Stellenbosch University.
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