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Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?

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Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?

#41

Post by germinalphrase »

colordrops wrote: post #32

One aspect is that NBC has a lock on the Olympics for the US. Their streaming service is utter trash - unreliable, bad quality video, confusing menus (couldn't even figure out how to watch live events), rewind and fast forward don't have preview (at least on Roku), so you have no idea where to stop, no overlays describing any details of the stream, no editing of recorded events (i.e. 45 minutes of a zamboni cleaning…

They are clearly behind in understanding how young people want to enjoy the games. The experience is trash when it even works (half the streams return an authorization error at random).

Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?

#42

Post by mucholove »

PaulHoule wrote: post #7

The model of "go to a new place every four years, build an Olympic village and a bunch of athletic facilities" doesn't work economically. It doesn't make enough money in the short term, and the facilities don't get enough use in the long term to justify it either. That makes it hard for a city in a free society to want to be the host. The costs are very real but the benefits are elusive. Probably the last time the Ol…

Barcelona 92 was the Olympics that most benefited a city.

What a wonderful city! And amazing port / beach transformation.

Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?

#45

Post by kerneloftruth »

The Winter Olympics have been in decline for several cycles now -- they're just not as interesting as the summer games. I recall a couple or more cycles back when they were in Canada that there was hardly any snow and about as much enthusiasm. Stephen Colbert was even there to try and bolster interest.

I feel sorry for Tokyo having been impacted by covid, where they had to postpone. Why we even went to China at all is a mystery to me.

Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?

#46

Post by andi999 »

paulsutter wrote: post #23

Olympics are like nationalism on steroids. How can that be interesting? It's also a tragedy. Tens of thousands of talented people who dedicate their lives to an event. Then they return from the Olympics to... get a job as a Wallmart greeter? It's a global waste of human potential

During the cold war the was more of a pannationalalism in the sense us vs them.

Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?

#47

Post by sys_64738 »

echelon wrote: post #37
PaulHoule wrote: post #7

The model of "go to a new place every four years, build an Olympic village and a bunch of athletic facilities" doesn't work economically. It doesn't make enough money in the short term, and the facilities don't get enough use in the long term to justify it either. That makes it hard for a city in a free society to want to be the host. The costs are very real but the benefits are elusive. Probably the last time the Ol…

The Atlanta Olympics made money. The event had commercial sponsors such as Coke and McDonald's plastered everywhere, which was derided at the time. The opening ceremony even prominently featured Chevy pickup trucks [1]. Nearly all of the newly built facilities were then reused as Georgia Tech dormitories, professional sporting stadiums, local high school facilities, etc. It was a huge inflection point for the city's…

All except the Olympic stadium which was torn down.

Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?

#48

Post by egberts1 »

As one who is surrounded by Olympics athletes, the 1984 Summer Olympics was held in Los Angeles.

I got the chance to actually meet people from all over the world and learn to converse in their tongues.

No politics, no post-event reviews, no media coverage on flaws of judging, no politicians leveraging Olympics (that I intensively read for in many printed media). A really nice week(s).

Today, not so much.

sources

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Summer_Olympics

Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?

#49

Post by lokar »

lokar wrote: post #35
PaulHoule wrote: post #7

The model of "go to a new place every four years, build an Olympic village and a bunch of athletic facilities" doesn't work economically. It doesn't make enough money in the short term, and the facilities don't get enough use in the long term to justify it either. That makes it hard for a city in a free society to want to be the host. The costs are very real but the benefits are elusive. Probably the last time the Ol…

It seems like there was this crazy escalation of spending promises to win the bid. At some point responsible democracies dropped out, the irresponsible democracies, so all that was left were authoritarian nations looking to improve their image without changing. Now it seems like even the authoritarian nations are deciding it's to expensive and you see responsible democracies getting back in with more realistic bids.

And of course the IOC is somehow more corrupt then FIFA, which is a real accomplishment.
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