2022 Arnold Classic South America heading for disaster.
Update – 22 April, 2022
There have been some updates regarding the 2022 Arnold Sports South America. Sources close to this website are stating that a few more bodybuilders have registered for this event. Regardless, the event still lacks promotion on the top media channels covering the NPC/Pro League events.
Regarding the event itself, the IFBB Pro League official site administrators have noticed they made a number of errors regarding the 2022 Arnold South America.
• The date of the event was changed on the artwork from 22-24 April to 29 April – 1 May.
• The original competitors list that listed only three competitors on 21 April, 2022, was removed.
Evolutionofbodybuilding.net reported about what was published on the original post. This site still believes the Arnold South America is having a number of difficulties and the professional athlete line-up will be low in numbers, for such an event.
Ifbbpro.com’s latest update about the 2022 Arnold Sports America as of 22 April, 2022.Update – 20 April, 2022
The 2022 Arnold Classic South America is going to take place in just a couple of days, and it seems that nothing is going according to plan.
Evolutionofbodybuilding.net published an article a few days ago about the 2022 Arnold Sports Festival, that is taking place in South America, 22-24 April, 2022.
Read More: 2022 Arnold Sports Festival South America – Does anybody care?
It seems the event organizers are having a major problem, convincing the best bodybuilders in the world to compete at this once prestigious event.
At the time of publishing this article, just two days before this event is set to start, only two IFBB Pro bodybuilders officially registered to compete.
Sibusiso Kotelo and Eduardo Rodriguez, are the only two athletes registered to compete at the 2022 Mr. Olympia qualifier.
Something is seriously wrong within the NPC and Pro League, if no bodybuilders want to make the trip to Brazil to compete at a Mr. Olympia qualifier.
Arnold Schwarzenegger surely does not like failure, and having only two competitors at the his main event, will surely make the bodybuilding legend think twice, before he has another event organized in South America.
The event organizers most probably did everything in their power, trying convince the world’s best bodybuilders to compete at this event.
From success to failure
Before the split in 2017, between the IFBB and NPC, the Arnold Sports Festival South America was a very successful event. The top pro bodybuilders in the world competed at this event, and the IFBB made sure the amateur event was a true success.
After the split in 2017, the Arnold Sports Festival South America was sanctioned by the IFBB and IFBB Elite Pro.
The NPC sanctioned the Arnold Sports Festival in the USA and Australia, while the IFBB and IFBB Elite Pro, held on to the events in Europe, South America and in Africa.
In 2018 and 2019, the IFBB Elite Pro had a very good line-up of the best athletes within the IFBB Elite Pro. As well, the IFBB Elite Pro had numerous divisions at this event.
The amateur event in 2018 and 2019 was also very successful, with hundreds of athletes fighting for the IFBB Elite Pro card.
Immediately after the 2019 event, the IFBB decided to cut their relations with the Arnold South America organizers.
Read More: The Arnold Classic Brazil – The IFBB responds and supports the Brazilian Federation
The Brazilian IFBB affiliate were not happy with event organizers, and the IFBB ended their relationship with them.
While the IFBB put their athletes first and distanced themselves, the NPC/Pro League supporters believed this was a victory, but their celebration would not last long.
The 2020 and 2021 Arnold Sports South America, had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The NPC/Pro League still had to prove the could organize this event on their own.
Finally in 2022, the event was given the green light to take place and nobody was interested.
As it looks, the 2022 Arnold South America is not going as planned. The event organizers, the NPC/Pro League and Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, will surely have to decide if this event is financially viable.
Absolutely no promotion from the media
The media dedicated to the NPC/Pro League, completely ignored this event in their daily reports.
In the past, any event organized by Arnold Schwarzenegger, would get promotion on a daily basis. But fast forward to 2022 and the media couldn’t care less about the Arnold South America.
If the media promoted this event months before, most probably more athletes would have registered to compete.
The marketing team for this event have a lot to explain after such a failure.
Is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s popularity declining?
As the years go by, the younger generation of bodybuilders literally do not care about the history of the sport.
10 or 20 years ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger was regarded as the king of bodybuilding. Every bodybuilder would dream to be in the same room as him.
Fast forward to 2022, the younger generation are more interested in social media stars that literally do not contribute to the sport of bodybuilding.
As it looks, the Arnold Classic USA, is the only event that Arnold Schwarzenegger is interested in on a personal level. Since the pandemic, Arnold Schwarzenegger decided not to travel to the Arnold Sports Festival in Europe and in the UK.
There is still no confirmation if Arnold will travel to the international Arnold Classic events in 2022.
With Arnold not being present for the international events, and the younger generation not interested in the bodybuilding legend, Arnold’s popularity seems to be fading away at a very fast rate.
