Rio Olympics: What's up with all those empty seats?

Elite athletes. Compelling human-interest angles. A spirit of global camaraderie.

And lots of empty seats.

The 2016 Olympics are underway in Rio de Janeiro, delivering tragedy and triumph alike for athletes from around the world. But after years of hype for the Rio Games, many events have been sparsely attended as ticket sales lag.

After the first weekend of the 16-day event, Friday's opening ceremony is reportedly the only event to sell-out so far. Ticket sales for Rio reportedly trail sales for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

"We have sold 82 percent of the tickets we have available, 5 million tickets," Mario Andrada, spokesman for the Rio 2016 organizing committee, told Reuters. "We still have 1.1 million tickets to sell."

Slow sales aren't the only problem, though. Even fans with event passes in hand have complained of trouble entering some venues on-time, with athletes competing inside while spectators wait to pass through security checks outside.

The swaths of empty seats have hardly gone unnoticed by fans watching on TV, creating another black eye for a Summer Olympics that have already been plagued by financial mismanagement and organizational chaos.

The issues shouldn't take anyone by surprise, though. In April, just five months before the Games began, organizers reported that only 50 percent of event tickets had been sold.

When the 2016 Games were awarded to Rio in 2009, Brazil was riding an economic upswing and appeared poised to become a heavyweight in global trade and politics. Today, however, the country is mired in a recession and president Dilma Roussef is awaiting an impeachment trial. Crime remains a worry for locals and visitors alike, and concerns over the Zika virus appeared to impact tickets sales this spring.

"Did all the negativity have something to do with who is in Rio? Probably to some extent," Joe Favorito, a Columbia University professor and veteran sports marketer, told Mashable. "But if you want to see an Olympics in person you are going, and will take the chances that are presented and be smart and safe. It's not like it's an impulse buy -- it's a lifestyle choice."

Representatives for the Olympics and the Rio 2016 committee did not immediately return Mashable's requests for comment Monday.

Money matters

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Andrada, the Rio 2016 spokesman, said last week that Games organizers had hit their revenue goals by selling large numbers of more expensive tickets.

Tickets for many preliminary events range from about $12 to $30. Prices go up to about $950 for the most expensive passes to the the Aug. 21 closing ceremony. About 75 percent of event attendees so far have been Brazilian, according to the Associated Press. Rio 2016 organizers announced days before the Games began that 240,000 unsold tickets would be given away to local schoolchildren.

Favorito points to another challenge for organizers of Rio 2016 and similar mega-events: The proliferation of digital media and increased quality of home entertainment systems.

"The risk you run as an event organizer on any level is, will the experience in-home be so good people question going to the events?" Favorito told Mashable. "I personally feel being there still trumps anything you can watch. But with discretionary income at a premium there is somewhat of a growing feeling that massive events in many cases need to find ways to fill every seat. That was not as big a challenge in years past."

TV audience down big, too

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If partially empty venues reflect apathy on the part of local Brazilians and global jet-setters, however, American TV numbers delivered a similar report through the Games' first weekend.

Sunday night Olympics viewership on NBC was down 17 percent this year compared to the first Sunday night of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, per CNN.

Yet that was still an improvement for NBC, which paid $1.23 billion to show this year's Games. Viewership on Friday was down 34 percent from the corresponding London 2012 date. Viewership on Saturday was down 27 percent.

Still, Favorito remains optimistic fans who watch on TV will see fewer empty seats as the Games continue.

"The seats looked full for the opening ceremonies and will surely fill as the week goes on, when many of the most ardent fans will make their way to Rio," he told Mashable.