I've been thinking that for the past 40 years. It's always worse during the summer olympics too, since the US tends to do better in that than the winter ones.
It's funny though. I've barely watched any, though I've enjoyed what I watched. I've just gotten so tired of them not paying any attention to any sports where the US isn't a factor and only paying attention to the US athletes, On top of that, the nonsense this year around people like Sha'Carri Richardson has made it so I just really don't care that much to watch. The annoying part is that I'm sure ratings are down and they will never once think that either of those two things could have been a factor.
I haven’t watched any Olympics except for a little bit of the Dominican Republic baseball team, and that only to see Jose Bautista. He’s old and unwanted in MLB now, but it felt good watching him win the bronze medal.
I've seen multiple people have similar opinions and am wondering if you were only watching prime time coverage on their main NBC affiliate? I get it, the prime time coverage was bad, US centric, with a ton of US stories without actually following any of the sport... and usually time delayed.
HOWEVER, there were many more channels than that. USA was showing 24 hour coverage (except one 3 hour spell of WCW wrestling on a Monday night). MSNBC also showed coverage throughout. CNBC stopped showing stupid news stuff at night and also showed Olympics. Now yes, there was never a moment if a heat had a US athlete that they would highlight that at the start, but many of these were HEATS... trials to even get to the quarterfinals let alone the finals. Many of which the US never had a chance at going far. Many other heats where there were no Americans competing. Flipping through channels (and usually ignoring the prime time channel) I saw so many non-consequential heats and trials and that made me smile. Here were people living their olympic dream and I was watching them go out like the champions they are.
And the events! I saw so much of kayak and canoe and rowing races. Team Handball. Field hockey. Mountain biking. Triathalon. Long distance "marathon" swims of 10 K in open water that was way too warm (85 degrees!). I saw Epee and Fencing and might even know the difference between the two now. Boxing (when the US wasn't expected to do well, but actually surprised everyone.) Multiple qualifier races in the track and field events (the stuff that is usually never seen because prime time will only show the Finals of most events.) Most of this was all Live at night (for me).
My final proof is that I watched, Live, in it's entirety (that's about 4 hours) with very little break in coverage the 50K Racewalk! No american was in the event. Sounds like a joke but this was some of the most brutal conditions of endurance I've witnessed. It's such a mentally taxing event. Back and forth on a 2K loop on one street! 25 times. Judges watching to make sure you don't break official form or they will penalize you (put you in a pit box for 5 minutes) or disqualify you 100 meters from the finish.... after 50K of agony... for about 4 hours... in 90 degree temps. The Polish walker won after breaking away from a front group with 20 K to go... People were collapsing... crying... some with 1000 yard stares. This was the last time that this event will be in the Olympics and I am happy to have witnessed it. I think those athletes honored it's sendoff very well.
That's totally fair, and I wonder if ratings for other ways of watching were up. I had the option to stream a lot of it through Peacock but didn't bother for the non-broadcast reasons that the Olympics are annoying me. That and a lack of interest in the summer Olympics overall, I've always been more interested in winter. On the other hand, for live TV I was a lot more limited since I cut cable last year, so that didn't help matters. Pretty much the only coverage I watched was in hotel rooms in Alaska.
We'll see how that works out in February.
US Open tennis - amazing women's final, a qualifier won, first time in the "open era".
Also amazing that it was on 20 anniversary of Sept 11, yet both players born after that.
Went to a baseball game yesterday for the first time in two years. Pretty good experience. Watched our Blue Jays host the Minnesota Twins. We beat them but our former MVP Josh Donaldson, who we still love, homered against us. It was nice seeing him again.
I’m going to have to renege on this statement.
I think it’s time to let go of the bitterness of the dismantling of our beloved 2015/16 teams, and embrace this new team and the future. That’s the way of sports.
This team is really exciting to watch. They are young and extremely talented, and with a lot of heart. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the clear front-runner for MVP. He’s phenomenal. We’ve been scorching hot lately and have managed to weasel our way into a Wild Card playoff spot, which I hope we can hang onto in the last couple of weeks of the season.
NFL Coaching and Broadcasting Legend and the namesake of many a good and bad video game, John Madden has passed away at age 85
From the official NFL twitter:
"In his career as an NFL head coach, John Madden led the @Raiders to a record of 103-32-7 (.759 win pct).
That is the highest winning percentage in the history of the NFL by anyone to coach for a decade or more.
Rest in peace to a legend."
Last edited by MR2 Fan; December 28th, 2021 at 05:05 PM.
Who-Dey
Get that weak shit off my track