Cross-cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion is a process by which per­sons from di­verse cul­tur­al back­grounds en­gage ef­fec­tive­ly in any con­text. It in­volves recog­nis­ing and re­spect­ing cul­tur­al sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences. For ex­am­ple, cross-cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion is es­sen­tial in pro­fes­sion­al sports where ath­letes from dif­fer­ent so­cio-eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al, racial, eth­nic and gen­der back­grounds com­pete with and against each oth­er. Like­wise, fans must ap­pre­ci­ate the im­por­tance of cross-cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion, as the teams they sup­port may con­sist of ath­letes from dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al back­grounds.

The Olympic Games are one of the largest glob­al in­cu­ba­tors for cross-cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Rio Olympic Games in 2016 had an es­ti­mat­ed view­er­ship of 342 mil­lion. For many, it may have been their first or on­ly ex­po­sure to a snip­pet of Brazil­ian cul­ture.

The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny of the Pyeongchang, South Ko­rea, 2018 Win­ter Olympics had a tele­vi­sion au­di­ence of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 27.9 mil­lion. A sig­nif­i­cant po­lit­i­cal out­come of the games was a hand­shake be­tween Kim Yo-jong, the sis­ter of North Ko­rea’s leader Kim Jong-un, and South Ko­re­an Pres­i­dent Moon Jae-in.

While the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny pro­vides snip­pets to the world, the Olympic vil­lage brings to­geth­er over 2,500 ath­letes and sup­port per­son­nel in a shared space, al­low­ing for de­vel­op­ing friend­ships and ri­val­ries, shar­ing gos­sip and truths, and more in-depth ex­po­sure to dif­fer­ent cul­tures. In ad­di­tion, spec­ta­tors are ex­posed to cross-cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ences as they move from event to event.

De­spite the di­ver­si­ty en­coun­tered at the Olympics, there are com­mon­al­i­ties. For ex­am­ple, the col­lec­tive au­di­ence can ap­pre­ci­ate an ath­lete’s hard work and de­ter­mi­na­tion re­gard­less of the coun­try they rep­re­sent. Us­ain Bolt, for ex­am­ple, is wide­ly re­gard­ed as the great­est sprint­er in Olympics his­to­ry. He is wide­ly ad­mired and re­gard­ed by peo­ple of dif­fer­ent cul­tures be­cause of his re­lent­less ef­forts to claim gold. His per­for­mances are in­spir­ing to peo­ple re­gard­less of their race or eth­nic her­itage. There­fore, Bolt is ac­knowl­edged in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as an elite ath­lete, en­cour­ag­ing many peo­ple to pay keen at­ten­tion to Ja­maica and its cul­ture. Bolt’s ath­let­ic prowess re­sults in the shared mean­ing of sprint­ing across dif­fer­ent cul­tures.

Fur­ther­more, cross-cul­tur­al aware­ness en­sures that ath­letes are ap­pre­ci­at­ed for their con­tri­bu­tions to sports re­gard­less of their back­grounds. Even coun­tries with strained diplo­mat­ic re­la­tion­ships can ap­pre­ci­ate ath­letes who com­pete at an elite lev­el. For ex­am­ple, Amer­i­can gym­nas­tic fol­low­ers can ap­pre­ci­ate the con­tri­bu­tions of Russ­ian gym­nast Svet­lana Khork­i­na de­spite the con­trast­ing po­lit­i­cal ide­olo­gies of Rus­sia and the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.

In a hy­per cul­tur­al­ly di­ver­si­fied world, it is ben­e­fi­cial for the me­dia and ath­letes to ap­pre­ci­ate, re­spect, and com­mu­ni­cate ef­fec­tive­ly. Ap­pre­ci­at­ing cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty cre­ates an en­vi­ron­ment for suc­cess­ful­ly man­ag­ing teams, sports or­gan­i­sa­tions and events. For in­stance, pro­fes­sion­al teams com­prise in­di­vid­u­als with vary­ing cul­tur­al iden­ti­ties, which, if un­der­stood, can con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly to the team’s col­lec­tive iden­ti­ty and be­ing suc­cess­ful.

The 2022 Ar­gen­tin­ian World Cup-win­ning team clear­ly il­lus­trat­ed this. On­ly one of the foot­ballers on the squad plays with an Ar­gen­tin­ian club. The oth­er team mem­bers ply their skills with clubs in Eng­land, France, Spain, the Unit­ed States, Amer­i­ca, Por­tu­gal and Italy.

There­fore, suc­cess­ful cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty man­age­ment de­pends on ath­letes and coach­es know­ing and ap­ply­ing the tools of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. The lack of aware­ness can lead to fail­ure for a sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion or an ath­lete.

The Olympics’ eco­nom­ic, so­cial and cul­tur­al lega­cy of the host city ex­tends be­yond its stag­ing. For ex­am­ple, the new in­fra­struc­ture built in prepa­ra­tion for the Games trans­forms the city and of­fers new op­por­tu­ni­ties for eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the 2006 Olympic Re­view, the glob­al im­pact of the Games in­cludes “tan­gi­ble in­fra­struc­ture con­struc­tion, such as com­pe­ti­tion venues and trans­port im­prove­ments, through to the evo­lu­tion of the im­age of a Host City, the event acts as a ve­hi­cle and cat­a­lyst which leaves a last­ing mark on the city, host coun­try and its peo­ple through its eco­nom­ic, ur­ban, so­cial or his­tor­i­cal in­flu­ence.” Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Olympics al­lows the host coun­try to mar­ket its cul­tur­al prac­tices to the world, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the open­ing and clos­ing cer­e­monies. The greater ex­po­sure has the po­ten­tial of cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for long last­ing in­ter­ac­tions through, tourism, eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

Christo­pher Jack­son is pur­su­ing a Mas­ter’s de­gree in Sports Busi­ness Man­age­ment in the Fac­ul­ty of Sport