Over a lovely dinner last night with some friends, we discussed the relevancy of the Olympics. I am pretty sure I was outnumbered at the table last night. Of course, they were all wrong, so that makes it easier.
In all honesty, I really understand why so many true sports fans love the Olympics. They love seeing those sports that never get any attention elsewhere, and as several noted last night, for track and field, it is the pinnacle of the sport, and the only real goal of the top athletes in the sport.
But here are my problems with the Games.
1) The American coverage. I think the Simpsons said it the best when they had their own Olympics in Springfield where athletes received the "glorious gold, so-so silver, and shameful bronze." If I hear one more of our idiot reporters ask someone how bad they feel for getting the silver, I will puke. I will. Not only that, but they add drama to events that are naturally dramatic. Kind of like adding sugar to sweet tea. Disgusting and annoying.
2) American coverage, cont. I hate the national jingoism on display. Rarely do we see coverage of sports where Americans are not competitive. That may have made sense in the Cold War when we were fighting the dirty Commies in hockey, but it makes no sense when a good number of those athletes competing for other nations live and train in the US.
3) The lack of true national rivalry. Perhaps a contradiction with the last point, but I stand by it. When the Olympics were a way to compete with our enemies, the games had a sense of peaceful coexistence and healthy competition. Better to wave flags at each other's bob sled teams than shoot each other, as it were. But Al Qaeda is not likely to field a bob sled team.
4) The increased corporatization of the games. I remember when Bob Costas got in trouble during the Atlanta games for criticizing China's human rights policies. China complained to the corporate sponsors, and they reined Bob in--for saying the truth. The real rivalries are there, but we can't talk about them because our corporations are too busy selling out to China.
5) As a result, we get made-up rivalries, like the US and Australian swim teams. Really? I am supposed to care about that?
I will probably watch some of the games. I always end up doing so. But they often don't make me happy.
So, tell me. Why will you watch (or not watch) the Olympics? And if you are not going to watch, why do you hate America?
11 comments:
Rarely do we see coverage of sports where Americans are not competitive.
It probably has more to do with ratings than anything else. If viewers were interested in the "non-American" sports, they would show them. I am sure the networks pay millions to get the Olympics, so they need to make their money back.
The lack of true national rivalry.
I agree. I miss the steroid laden East Germans.
So, tell me. Why will you watch (or not watch) the Olympics?
I prefer winter sports and enjoy the Winter Olympics, but I'll catch some of the Summer Games.
For anything other than Track and Field the Olympics have become irrelevant. The major sports are now filled with professionals, it's kind of hard to feel such national pride when using hired guns.
I don't know how "relevant" the games ever were to begin with, but I can't see how they are harmful. As for complaints about the over corporatization of the games, this strikes me as in the same league of yearly complaints about how Christmas has been too commercialized. We've heard these all our lives, and if one is being really honest, no one can remember a time when the games/Christmas wasn't commercialized. But there must have been a golden age when everything was pure, right?
Not sure I buy the Christmas/Olympic games comparison. In fact, just since I have been watching the games, the amount of corporate power has increased, primarily because the amount of money going to athletes has increased nearly exponentially. As PM noted, most of the athletes competing for the US are now professional athletes. It wasn't always so.
Are the games harmful? I guess it depends on the definition. And I think it suggests that you see them only as games. But that has not always been the case either, as we saw during those Cold War battles where the Olympics helped highlight the differences between the East and the West. The current Olympics will try to overlook those differences, I suspect, and we will hear very little coverage about Tibet. Is that harm?
This is not just nostalgia speaking. For one thing, I am not sure that the professionalization in the games is all bad. I don't mind the NBA players, for example, primarily because this is actually the only arena where these pros are challenged by the growing world of basketball. It seems stupid in Tennis, on the contrary, where professional tennis players compete internationally every day.
Further, I don't think you can so easily dismiss the role that corporate money play in these games. It is the same corporate power that you and I both criticize in our national media coverage of American politics.
But there must have been a golden age when everything was pure, right?
Bit of a cheap shot. Sorry.
Apologies; I didn't mean it to come across that way. I just meant to express my observation that a lot of hemming and hawing usually accompanies each appearance of the Olympics, and this is no exception.
No big deal. I guess I am unsure why you think that discussing the corporate presence in the Olympics is somehow nostalgic. I don't think you believe that if we are talking about corporate issues in the media, in national franchises (Starbucks, anyone?) or the role that corporations play in our politics or public health. Is it because of the sports involved?
Interesting article about the economic side of the games. Little unclear, but the cost of putting on the Athens games is a few billion dollars? Holy cow.
I don't think it's nostalgic in a quaint sort of way, I just meant to say that it seems to me this discussion comes up every four years on the dot. So if the question is "are the Olympics still relevant" and attention is being paid to the corporate presence, I have to say, "Were they ever relevant?" and let's not discuss this corporate presence as if it were a recent thing. When I was a wee little lad I remember hearing people grumble about it, left and right.
By all means: criticize the corporate presence. I'm right with you. Just nothing new. And that's why I brought up the comparison with Christmas.
But you are right: Because it's sports, I don't really care. As I've said before, sports are the opiate of the masses.
Actually, I was not criticizing the corporate presence, but rather the rising power of the corporations. If they can muzzle how we even discuss our China policy, then they have more power. And I think we can agree that while the media has always struggled with that, there have been times when the news was seen as separate from the rest of the media corporations. Perhaps a short time.
I thought you dismissed it because it is sports. But that makes no sense. Most of my criticism has very little to do with sports--and has everything to do with broader issues--national identity, economics, and I didn't even touch on the environmental concerns of these huge games. The fact that they are all about sports, or whether sports are an opiate is really secondary to the economic and political issues. You can care less about who can run fastest, but I would suggest that you do care what happens to Tibet. And I suspect you care what kind of power China brings to our world market and political culture. Those are the background issues behind this.
One more thing. You asked if the Olympics had ever been relevant. I would suggest that they have. Whether it was Jesse Owens upstaging Hitler's racism in 1936, the terrorist attack in Munich, or the numerous sport's "battles" between the US and USSR when the other forms of battle were unthinkable--I can't quite dismiss those events as irrelevant.
"Relevant" and "living up to its ideals" seem to be two different things. If nothing else, the games give lots of countries excuses to have their staff talk to each other and keep lines of communication open between departments of State that don't like speaking to each other. On that basis, corporate infiltration aside, I want to say the Olympics have a net positive effect on the world political scene. It could be much, much better than it is, of course.
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