The budget-challenged Rio Paralympics kick off tonight with the Opening Ceremony set to air on NBCSN at 7:00pm ET. NBC Sports has promised more than 70 hours of coverage of the 12-day event, almost entirely on NBCSN. Its coverage will heavily feature track and field, swimming and wheelchair basketball, though wheelchair rugby and sitting volleyball will also be available on linear TV. The USOC will stream additional sports footage at TeamUSA.org. The 17-day old Olympic Channel also will stream 300 hours of live Paralympics coverage, its first foray into live sports coverage. In the final run-up to the Paralympics, the news out of Rio has been dominated by the absence of IOC President Thomas Bach, who will be the first IOC chief to not attend the Paralympics since '84. Bach instead is in his home country of Germany attending the official state mourning for former West Germany President Walter Scheel. However, there could be another reason he is staying away -- Brazilian news outlet Globo has reported that he will be subpoenaed by local authorities as a witness into the investigation into IOC member Patrick Hickey, who has been charged with ticket scalping, conspiracy and ambush marketing. Bach has not been accused of any wrongdoing. The IOC has also been at odds with the Int'l Paralympic Committee over handling of Russian doping allegations; the IPC banned Russia entirely, a step the IOC did not take.
GETTING THERE IS HALF THE BATTLE: The IPC said 160 countries are set to participate in the Paralympics, and some delegations’ trips were in doubt due to a budgetary crisis that delayed travel grants until the last few days. Rio 2016 and the Brazilian government last month cobbled together an additional $73.8M in funding for the Paralympics but still had to close venues and slash some services to make the budget. Sponsors of the IPC are keeping their enthusiasm up despite the challenges facing the Games, which has sold 1.6 million tickets in a late surge but had sold only a few hundred thousand as of mid-August. Samsung has altered its Olympic Park showcase to emphasize features of its new devices that help people with disabilities make full use of their phones, and will support 30 Paralympians’ personal blogs with its technology, for instance.
