Currently athletes from around the globe are competing on the world’s largest stage—the Olympic Games. The opening ceremonies in Pyeongchang brought in 27.8 million viewers. For the 2016 Rio Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) estimated that half of the world’s population, roughly 3.6 billion people, would watch at least one minute of the games. That’s quite an audience—and naturally, it is something most brands want to take advantage of.

However, despite the variety of advertisements and marketing materials featuring athletes, brand engagement with the Olympic Games, as well as the athletes themselves, is actually incredibly limited around the time of competition due to Rule 40.

Rule 40 of the Olympic Charter states that athletes competing in the Games may not appear in any advertising or marketing material during the games-time period, typically the week before competition, the two weeks of competition, and the week following competition, without expressed consent from their national Olympic committees. In the case of the United States, this is the United State Olympic Committee (USOC).

So what exactly does that mean? Well, official partners of Team USA, not to be confused with the IOC, are authorized to feature competing athletes in advertising or marketing materials during the games-time period so long as the content has been approved by the USOC. This makes sense for most material as commercials, billboards and packaging are often planned far in advance.

However, it is quite interesting to see how the rule is being applied to social media. Social media has become a platform for fans and brands to interact directly with athletes, celebrities and influencers. It has also created a way for brands to react quickly to events. For instance, Oreos “you can still dunk in the dark” tweet stole the show during the Super Bowl power outage in 2013.

Similarly, athletes are making history daily at the Olympic Games. Already we’ve seen two 17-year olds win gold medals for Team USA, Mirai Nagasu was the first American woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics, Shaun White won his third gold medal and there’s still plenty of competition left.

However, because of Rule 40, brands cannot interact with athletes publicly unless they are an official partner of Team USA and the content they post is approved by the USOC. Many of these athletes have been supported by a variety of sponsors throughout their journey to the Olympic Games, but cannot publicly wish them good luck or congratulate them on their success until about a week after the closing ceremonies—defeating the purpose of social media.

For some big brands, this may not have as big an impact, but for smaller brands that have invested a significant amount of their marketing budgets in these athletes, they end up missing out on major opportunities for exposure, especially considering many of these athletes have built impressive followings on social media. For instance, Lindsey Vonn, Shaun White, Mikaela Shiffrin, Gus Kenworthy and Chloe Kim all have about 500,000-1 million Instagram followers. One Seattle company, Oiselle, supported a track athlete and was restricted on how they expressed their excitement for her after a very successful performance at the Olympic Trials in 2016. The company shared its frustrations with The Seattle Times.

The IOC explains that the purpose of the rule is to prevent over-commercialization of the Olympics. The games are about bringing together the world’s best amateur athletes in spirited competition that promotes unity. And while it is great to see a historic, monumental and often moving event stay focused on its values, it will be interesting to see if the rule ever evolves to ease up a bit on the limits and restrictions around brands congratulating or celebrating athletes on social media.

We’ll have to wait and see, but until then, good luck to the athletes of Team USA!