The main bowl of the iconic Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympic Games will take place. According to IOC sources, the Creative Directors of the ceremony will be two renowned Brazilian film directors: Fernando Meirelles of the City of God and The Constant Gardener fame and Daniela Thomas who co-directed the handover from London 2012 and Andrucha Waddington.
The ceremony will kick off the world’s biggest sporting carnival. The Olympic is simply the biggest multi-sport event in the world. The Rio Games are already being tipped to eclipse the London games with 42 Olympic sports and 306 events over the course of 19 days of intense competition.
Nigeria’s flag will be flown at the Games with participation in football for men, basketball for men, athletics, wrestling, table tennis, boxing and several other sports. With the Super Eagles having dropped out of the 2017 AFCON in Gabon, the Olympics is the next frontier for Nigeria football.
The golden boys of Atlanta 1996 went to the Olympics as underdogs and came back with a gold medal in football. Coach Samson Siasia has been working very hard with his team to repeat the feat of 1996. The male basketball team has earned a lot of respect and they have made it to the Olympics for the second time in a row.
The team will be playing the US Olympic basketball team as part of her preparation for the Olympic Games in Brazil. Nigerians have not had the opportunity to cheer their teams for a while but Brazil will offer that opportunity once again.
Definitely, most Nigerians will be glued to their television sets to watch the Games unfold. According to the 2014 FIFA World Cup report released by FIFA earlier in the year, ‘the largest average audiences across Africa and the Middle East were generated in Nigeria by NTA’s network and by be IN Sports across the Middle East and North Africa.’
Each channel was projected to have attracted peak match audiences of over 30million viewers, both finding their way into the top ten match audiences globally. According to the report, in Nigeria, audiences were able to watch on cable but the broadcast had a higher penetration on the NTA terrestrial Network.
With the Olympics, the penetration on terrestrial TV will even be deeper as the Olympic broadcast will be on the NTA Network, AIT Network and Silverbird. These broadcasters will be showing three belts of three hours per day with a 30-minute highlight programme in the morning each day. This broadcast is under license from Infront Sports through TVMS to the licensee, the Nigeria Olympic Committee.
