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Empty seats, including at popular beach volleyball, have become a common sight in Rio's early days.
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Empty seats and low ticket sales are emerging as a major theme in the early days of the Rio Games, being played out amid a severely depressed local economy.
Several high-profile events on the opening weekend fell well short of capacity, including the U.S.-China men’s basketball game on Saturday, the opening night of swimming finals, Serena Williams’ opening-round match and Saturday afternoon beach volleyball sessions at Copacabana Beach. Both Saturday and Sunday, fans could buy same-day tickets to a variety of sports at Barra Olympic Park kiosks, a rare sight according to Olympics veterans.
As of 11 a.m. Rio time today, 84 percent of the Games’ total inventory had been sold, an uptick from 82 percent a day earlier, according to Donovan Ferreti, Rio 2016 ticketing director.
But often tickets sold don’t equate to occupied seats. Many of the best and most TV-visible seats at the Olympics are obtained by sponsors or Olympic partners through contracts and go unused. Premium seats at the U.S. men’s basketball game on Saturday were especially sparsely filled.
“The person who owns the ticket can decide when and if they want to enjoy,” said Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada. “We are paying attention to this, we understand the implications and we have a kind dialogue with [sponsors] when it’s needed to correct anything.”
He said they have not spoken to any sponsors so far about unused seats. Ferreti said fans often don’t stay for full sessions that include multiple matches in early competition rounds. But on Sunday, not only was Williams playing on Center Court, but popular British champion Andy Murray played in the same ticketed session.
The situation is more dire at lower-profile sports. An attendee at a women’s rugby session on Saturday described attendance at below 20 percent.
“Understand that you see empty stadiums, that is not a growing trend, it’s something (that) is easy for us to fix, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Andrada said.
Rio 2016 has gone to extraordinary efforts to fill the seats when possible. For instance, last week Rio 2016 announced a program to give away 240,000 tickets to school children around Rio. When sponsors know their tickets will go unused in advance, they are instructed to submit them to the program.
But the distribution channels are not always smooth with Rio school children on winter break, and the tickets held by sponsors and their marketing agencies are rarely returned far enough in advance to sell them. The Rio winter break normally happens in July but was moved to the Games period this year to mitigate traffic.
Separately, Rio police and Olympic organizers have begun to move against illegal ticket distribution. Forty scalpers were charged outside Barra Olympic park on Sunday, Andrada said. Rio police also held a press conference to announce they’d busted a criminal organization based in Sao Paulo for buying large quantities of tickets and reselling them illegally.
