Why The Heck Do We Keep Watching the Olympics?
Author: Nick
Category: Money
Topics: economy, entertainment
It just doesn’t make sense. I’m not really a big sports fan at all. I mean, I’ll watch the occasional baseball or football game, and about the only sports I play are on a Nintendo Wii. So why have I logged over 20 hours of Olympic watching in the last 10 days?
An even better question: why are the rest of you watching so many Olympic events with me? The rest of the year, I bet 75% of you run out of the room screaming at the sight of a sporting event on your television. And I know that virtually all of you would never dream of spending even 10 minutes watching sports like rowing or synchronized diving or rhythmic gymnastics if they didn’t have the word “Olympic” prepended to their names.
And the sporting events that Americans actually watch outside of the Olympics? They’re barely mentioned at the Summer Games. Baseball is just an afterthought as the American team is composed of minor-league wannabes filling in for major leaguers who wouldn’t dare leave their teams for weeks or even months in the middle of real American baseball season. Basketball gets some decent Olympic coverage—but America stopped caring about professional basketball about 15 years ago. And football? Yeah, that’s what the rest of the world calls soccer, so don’t expect to see touchdowns and two-point conversions at any Olympics on this planet.
So if we don’t watch fencing and beach volleyball and table tennis the other 1446 days of every four years, why are we suddenly glued to our TV tubes for two straight weeks to watch these bizarre sports, most of which America sucks at? I’ll tell you why (and finally tie this article into something money-related, lest I waste my once-a-year off-topic permit): the Olympics are an escape from the financial woes of our everyday lives.
Most people will probably admit that the Olympics provide a nice diversion from normalcy. After all, the Summer Games only happen every four years, so the Olympics are something special—not just some ho-hum boring annual event. But notice that I said the Olympics provide an escape specifically from financial woes. How am I drawing such a conclusion? Well, how else do you explain why we watch 16-year-old girls in skin-tight outfits swinging around on bars and dancing on balance beams only once every four years? Am I still not making sense? Okay, let’s look at it this way:
- The Olympic games are the most expensive sporting spectacles ever. Putting together a venue for the Olympic games is an expensive proposition. It’s estimated that China spent 12 yuan (approximately $293 gazillion U.S. dollars) to put together the Beijing games. Poor people like us, for some crazy reason, enjoy watching countries spend a ton of money on temporary things. In a few more days, nobody’s going to give a damn about the Beijing Water Cube or Bird’s Nest or Ping Pong Castle. Maybe we just feel good knowing that we use our personal money for more practical things like inflatable furniture and high-definition mailboxes.
- Most Olympic athletes are, and forever shall be, poorer than us. Except for the gold-medal winners of the big sports who are pretty much guaranteed cushy endorsement deals, 99% of the athletes you see at the Olympic games are dirt poor. Heck, most of the American Olympians are probably making less money than your typical four-year degree-holder. So yes, that guy from Botswana can run 100 meters while you’re still saying “100 meters,” but at least you have food on your table every night.
- Gold medals are shiny. Forget that many of these Olympic sports have National and World Championships that also award gold medals to top finishers. There’s something about the phrase “Olympic gold” that consistently pulls in those TV viewers. Perhaps if we awarded big hunks of precious metals to doctors, police officers, and sanitation workers, people might start caring about them a little more.
- The Olympics are a free vacation away from garbage TV programs. While technically the Olympics are reality television, it’s leaps and bounds above the other reality television NBC has to offer (except American Gladiators which is awesome so shut up). Sure, we could do something crazy like turn off the TV and go outside, but why would we want to do that when we can get over 400 different Olympic events beamed halfway across the universe into our living rooms for cheap or free.
- If you don’t watch the Olympics, you’re a Communist. The U.S. has so successfully commercialized the 2008 Beijing Olympic games—despite the fact that they’re being held in the most Communist country left today—that not tuning in and watching the Nike and United Airlines commercials would be like giving away your constitutional right to sit on your ass and watch other people exercise competitively. The Chinese are already trouncing us in the gold medal standings; you don’t want them to come over here and force their economic growth and prosperity on us, do you?
Essentially the Olympics become much less about the sport and far more about the spectacle—the super-expensive, gold-plated, sponsor-supported spectacle. I don’t know about you, but my wallet feels a little bit heavier just watching a few rounds of women’s floor exercises… well, at least until I start shelling out for assorted Shawn Johnson merchandise.
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18 Responses »
1.
Lamar
August 20th, 2008 at 7:49 am
I think tight competition is pretty much guaranteed in the Olympics (and no I’m not referring to the cartoon). You can’t get that anywhere else. Americans also like buffets.
2.
A1 Medical Supplies
August 20th, 2008 at 8:03 am
I am right there with you about not being too big on sports, but somehow being sucked into the Olympics. I probably spend more time watching the Olympics than I do other sports in two years.
There are a lot of them though, like BMX and badminton, that I just can’t get behind. I am not saying that the people competing in these events arn’t athletes or extremely talanted, but I just don’t think they should be Olympic Sports. I mean come on badminton?
3.
Business Cash
August 20th, 2008 at 9:27 am
K, here’s why everybody in America likes watching the Olympics: our team always wins! Every day, NBC selects the sports in which American athletes do the most awesome things, and then they show it to us. It’s like an America-Is-Awesome highlight reel. If I could watch my football team win in new and awesome ways every day, you’d better believe I’d sit on my ass for two hours and watch. It’s kind of like being a New England Patriots fan, except they don’t show you the super bowl.
4.
James
August 20th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I think the allure for most sporting events like these is because it is something completely out of the ordinary. They are also the best in the world. I also like to root for the U.S.
Anyways it gives us the opportunity to see events and activities that we have never seen before (or at least not in 4 years). I personally love the Olympics too. Instead of a relief from the financial woes though, I think it is just a relief from everyday life. I have been waiting on your post (it’s been a while).
5.
James
August 20th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
sorry
* I think there is an allure for sporting events like these because it is something completely out of the ordinary.
6.
Kimberly
August 20th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
The draw for the Olympics for me is that it gives me someone to root for. I wouldn’t watch fencing or rowing or most any of the individual competitions if there were just Random participants. But I can root for the American because she’s American! And most of the sports are pretty exciting! But how would I choose who to root for if it’s not the Olympics?
7.
Steward
August 21st, 2008 at 10:54 am
The Olympics always have and always will be about nationalism, and the comments on this post represent that adroitly. Everybody loves to see how we are way more cooler than tiny countries like Mongolia and the Bahamas. We find collective strength in knowing that we can trounce 99% of the world in things that don’t matter. Our hearts beat faster and our lives feel fuller knowing that our money makes us powerful.
8.
Jeff
August 21st, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I have to say that I haven’t watched much of the Olympics outside of the opening ceremonies. It’s not that I don’t like to see America be awesome, it’s just that whenever I sit down to watch there is some random sport on. Like table tennis or tandem rowing. The sports themselves just don’t keep me interested enough to watch. I did make sure to watch the basketball though.
9.
Kyle
August 21st, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I just love sports, so that’s why I watch. I have my favorites, but I enjoy pretty much any sport. Especially beach volleyball
10.
Pasty Muncher
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:44 am
I reckon that all the plans the Chinese had to force precipitation to clear the dirt air were extended to include Europe in the hope we’d all stay in out of the rain and watch more of the games
11.
Pedro
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
It is a vain attempt by the IOC to cause a mutation in your genes so your offsprings don’t end up like you whining about thing you cannot comprehend.
12.
Obbop
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Nope, no watch Olympics. No listen on radio. No peek on the Web.
Just do not care.
Did see the 1980 American actually amateur hockey team go for the gold.
Semi-truck in shop being repaired. Hunkered down in a friend’s trailer outside town while he was of to Florida while the blizzard raged outside.
Ample food and libations and I knew how to roll.
That was cool.
Didn’t watch any after that.
Don’t watch ANY sports.
Unless my intellect is caressed boredom and a sense of inanity of what is before me causes me, the lovely, the talented, Obbop to hie off seeking that which WILL arouse the intellect, titillate the neurons and synapses.
Not lambasting those watching sports or the Olympics.
It just ain’t for me and that’s all I got to scribble about that.
13.
Brad
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I can tell you that the reason I’m not watching this year is that I have way too much going on right now.
But I can’t quite wrap my head around what Pedro is saying … who exactly is trying to mutate the genes in my offspring? And just how, exactly, are they doing this by having people watch the Olympics?
14.
Pedro
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
A complex theory of Audio-visual input stimulating a rather dormant physical activity gene in a parent which when mutated may lead to a rise in offsprings with dominant physical activity gene thereby preventing such offsprings from making lame cartoons and immature comments about future Olympics and its spirit thereof.
Brad, cheers. In the spirit of the games - Salute.
15.
Jerry
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:38 pm
That was totally funny.
Jerry
16.
Jason
September 1st, 2008 at 11:18 am
I don’t usually watch sports too. But during Olympics i watch almost all the tv telecasts except horse riding events. Thats the power of Olympics
17.
Full Tilt rakeback
September 25th, 2008 at 5:33 am
I watch the olympics because there are times when it gives you inspiring moments.
18.
Picasso Style Canvas Art
October 21st, 2008 at 11:39 pm
So now it’s October - who cares about Fencing, Archery, Gymnastics, Rowing, Horse Events etc now?! I thought so! But once every 4 years, these events seem to be so important. Hmm…
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