Karate has a very favorable investigation of its impact in Tokyo 2020 and hopes to return to the Los Angeles 2028 Program

An investigation into the communicational impact of karate in the past Tokyo Olympics has raised hopes of its reincorporation to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Program.

The report with the statistics of television audiences, in traditional media and social networks, compared to other sports, will be revealed and debated in the coming days at the Congress of the World Federation (WKF) in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). United).

The Congress will be on November 15, one day before the World Championship in which the vast majority of the Olympic and world champions will be seen as Sandra Sánchez (Spain), Ryo Kiyuna (Japan), Jovana Prekovic (Serbia) and Steven Dacosta (France).

Engineer Antonio Espinós, Sixth Dan and President of the WKF, declined to go into details about the report commissioned by his federation from the Nielsen company, recognized in the field of sports measurement and analysis worldwide.

However, Espinós, who has led the WFK since 1998 and the European Federation since 1997, advanced to Around The Rings some data . He also reported that these days the IOC will send each Olympic sports federation an analysis of the respective sport in Tokyo but without comparisons.

In the research ordered by the WFK, karate has been measured with other disciplines and in specific markets such as France and the United States, venues for the 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games.

The three parameters investigated were: television audience, traditional and online media coverage and the potential of fans.

In France the comparison of karate has been with the other three sports added to the Tokyo program: surfing, climbing and skateboarding, disciplines that will also be in Paris 2024.

In the United States, the comparison analyzed was with respect to the Olympic judo and taekwondo tournaments.

The French measurement resulted in karate being the highest rated with four million viewers. Under the concept of “Staunch Fans”, three million were registered and “Interested or Very Interested Fans” almost eight million.

The report ensures that karate also accumulates the largest number of online news.

“We understand that these data are further proof of the inconsistency and opacity of the criteria put forward by Paris 2024 and supported by the IOC for the“ non-inclusion ”of karate that I prefer to call exclusion,” Espinós remarks.

“Tokyo did a process for the additional sports which is an example compared to the ‘no process’ of the Paris Organizing Committee,” he added.

In the United States, according to the report delivered to the WKF, karate, compared to the Olympic judo and taekwondo tournaments, was the first in television broadcasts (in reference to the one that had bought the broadcasting rights from the IOC), with an average audience per broadcast of 700,000 viewers.

With figures of almost 25 million “Staunch Fans” and some 53 million “Interested or Very Interested Fans”, the investigation ensures that this sport had the greatest potential. A similar position was registered regarding the follow-up of information about Olympic karate on social networks.

“These data lead us to conclude that due to the media, social and television impact in the US, karate should be included by the IOC in the permanent 2028 Olympic Program,” reiterates Espinós.

It is the first time that there is a comparative analysis of karate with other sports, which made its Olympic debut in Tokyo 2020, a presentation that was also dismissed. Paris 2024 preferred breakdancing, as an urban modality closer to young people, according to its argument.

The Organizing Committee has reiterated that its program is already closed and that there are no intentions to modify it amid exhortations from athletes, authorities such as the sports minister Roxana Maracineanu and French parliamentarians in favor of martial art.

France is considered among the world powers of karate. In Tokyo one of the eight gold medals in dispute was achieved by Steven DaCosta in the 67 kg.

According to the French press, the president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, told French officials the need to increase the number of medals as the host country for the next Olympic Games.

Espinós does not rule out a meeting with Bach, already with the two reports from the IOC and the WKF in hand, but clarifies “Paris is the past, in the end what we have in front of us is the Los Angeles Games.”