PARALYMPICS: Last Sunday the BBC broadcast live coverage of the Paralympics for the first time, new territory for Britain's public service broadcaster. While the network is aware there is interest in Paralympic sport, especially at the elite end on the track and in the pool, they were never sure just how many people would switch on. Another view is the decision can hardly injure London's bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, which will be voted on next year in Singapore.

The BBC's director for major events, Dave Gordon, was reported on Wednesday by news agency Agence France-Press (AFP) as saying: "There is a clear audience appetite for world-class disability sport."

Gordon substantiated his claim by stating that an audience of two million viewers "was a perfectly respectable figure". In fact that two million audience represented higher ratings over last weekend for the BBC than the World Athletics Final in Monaco. The corporation has around 100 people in Athens, while RTÉ, who had over 40 people working at the Olympics, have five here.

The USA, which has one of the largest teams at the Games, 235 athletes, did not have one broadcaster interested in the Athens event. After the Olympic Games in August the 2,500 people CBS had reputedly sent over to serve the needs of their coverage packed their bags and went home. With New York also hoping to attract the 2012 games, the impact of that coldly commercial decision could also be felt when the votes are cast in 2005.

The decision did not go down well in some quarters, most notably with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), who believe there is a strong public interest and expressed their "disappointment" that no US network had bought the rights.

The US Paralympic Association, however, take a more pragmatic view, seeing the decision as a developmental issue. Their attitude is one of "build it and they will come".

"Our print coverage has been very, very strong. We don't have a government-owned broadcasting company in the US, so there are commercial realities," said Charlie Huebner, managing director of US Paralympics. " I think we are very similar to soccer in the US, which was built up to what it is now from grass roots. But that took 20 years and now there is great participation. That's our goal.

"Already we are seeing more corporations stepping up because we are making it more financially viable. But you've got to realise that there was never a focus on Paralympic sport until the US Olympic Committee stepped in two years ago. If you are realistic about it you can take a look at US sports. The National Hockey League is now struggling because of the apathy of the American public. In specific markets, where we are building interest and relevancy in Paralympic sports, we are getting fantastic coverage. But in many cases Americans don't know what Paralympics are because they haven't even used that terminology."

The Atlanta Paralympic Games in 1996 were the first to be sold to networks and this year in Athens, the rights could be secured for as little as $1.2 million. The US networks, according to Miriam Wilkens, media director of the IPC, turned down the rights because of the costs and a lack of public interest in the package.

One of the ironies of this is US network coverage of Olympic Games tends to be gushing. Their stories have historically centred on personal triumphs that not so much pull at the heart strings as wear them out. Almost every athlete here has a story, the latest one to emerge that of the Cambodian athlete Nhork Kimbhor. Official estimates of Cambodian amputees puts the figure at about one for every 250 people. Kimbhor lost his leg serving as a soldier when he stepped on a landmine. Having seen the misery suffered by landmine victims in his country, he had vowed to shoot himself if he were ever to end up in the same position. On the day Kimbhor was blown up, the only weapon he was carrying was a rocket launcher. As he prepared to shoot himself he realised nothing of his body would be left for his parents to bury. Instead he shot the rocket into the ground beside where he lay, expecting the blast to kill him. The rocket buried itself in the ground having failed to detonate. Now Kimbhor is running in the Paralympics.

There's a Kimbhor story for every day here and there are countries that when they are voting in Singapore may remember Atlanta's frenzied commercialism of the five rings in 1996. If the 2012 games did go back to the US they may wonder if anything has changed.

But as Huebner pointed out, the networks in Athens now, like the BBC and RTÉ, are mostly government-funded. Commercial realism will determine the future, with American networks waiting in the wings to see if there's a buck to be made in Paralympic sport.