Olympic Games have been used before to underline the power and greatness of a nation - look at how the 1936 Games were used propaganda-wise, so I don't think this is a new phenomenon. What has definitely changed is the importance of live events on TV. In the German speaking area in the 80s to the 2000s, Saturday night shows were popular that gathered the whole family in front of the TV (I'm just saying "Wetten Dass..?"). Due to on demand entertainment that can be perfectly tailored for the desired target audience on Youtube or similar platforms, such TV events have simply lost their importance.
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?
#92I don't know where you live, but my experience is that in the US, the network coverage just ruined the Olympics because they don't "get it." I grew up in a different country--not the US, China or Russia. We typically hope to get a half dozen medals and a gold would be a Big Deal. As a result, if you turn on the TV, you get random coverage of any of the hundreds of individual competitions. Modern pentathlon! The one w…
I worked on the BBC's British coverage of Sydney, Salt Lake City and Athens Olympics (2000-2004).
The sibling comments here are absolutely right - the US coverage is terrible compared to the quality of the output of other broadcasters.
The problem is that US audiences only want to watch American competitors and most popular sports here are ones where the majority of teams and players are American. The Olympics isn't about one country and so to focus all of your coverage just on your own country creates a very tilted output, esp when America isn't featured in a final. Whole sports are not covered because there is no American competing, and to not show a final because no Americans made it through is just absurd.
For comparison, the BBC shows every heat/round from every sport. Some of it is online only or via the red button (extra channels via digital TV we don't have in the US) but they show it and commentate on it. And with no ads.
Sports like Formula 1 are not popular in the US because there are no American drivers and the single American team is hardly American (based in Europe, currently has Russian flag livery due to weird sponsorship deal). But we'll know when Americans start watching sports for the pleasure of competition and not for nationalistic reasons because sports like F1 will become more popular organically.
Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?
#93I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but what really ruined the Olympics for me was the sudden realization of what they are.
In essence, [modern] Olympics are a glorified parade of genetic freaks (ok, maybe not freaks, but outliers?). I don't mean this disrespectfully to the athletes, but at the same time, the reason they're able to break the top 10 in any particular sport is extreme form of selection bias.
Their lungs are just a little bit bigger than everyone else's. Or their femur/thigh ratio or whatever. Or their fingers are extra flexible.
So what we see is just a ruthless form of selecting the best people genetically, for that sport, since childhood. Yes, sure, they put in a lot of work, but so does every athlete who doesn't make it to the Olympics or WCs. And I'm sure 99+% don't make it. But you still can't overcome something like a height disadvantage in Basketball or Swimming with pure training.
As someone who struggles with poor health genetics, watching Olympics for me is rubbing salt in the wound at best. And once you realize it's just genetic freaks performing "as expected", it's really all very boring. Also once you realize the performance records mostly stagnated after the 1980s, and most of the modern record improvements are due to hyper-optimized equipment.
After all, would we be surprised that a dog is good at running or a fish is good at swimming?
Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?
#94Total opposite experience, much better to watch the Olympics nowdays than back in the days. I can watch whatever I want. idk where you live but at least in Europe, EuroSport Player you can watch all events, no ads, and any kind of commentary or non at all. https://www.eurosportplayer.com/olympics
Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?
#95The 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.
Except that the next Olympics are due to be held in France, Italy, USA, Australia - and only one of those is partly an authoritarian nation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_Games_host_cit...
Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?
#96>When I was a kid, we use to look forward to the Olympics. It was a big deal. The whole family would gather around the TV to watch the events live regardless of timezone. [...] Nowadays, [...] No one cares. Heck, some people don’t even know that the Olympics are even happening. It seems like the macro trend of network television spectacle events is on the decline and probably due to the internet. The decline in ratin…
I agree completely. I'd also add that many people don't even have cable television now, so could they even watch the Olympics if the wanted to? I have not watched network television in about 10 years, I have netflix and another streaming service, and that's it. Does NBC have free online streaming? Even if they do, it's still outside most people's normal sphere of media consumption so they are probably less likely to look at it.
Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?
#97>When I was a kid, we use to look forward to the Olympics. It was a big deal. The whole family would gather around the TV to watch the events live regardless of timezone. [...] Nowadays, [...] No one cares. Heck, some people don’t even know that the Olympics are even happening. It seems like the macro trend of network television spectacle events is on the decline and probably due to the internet. The decline in ratin…
I think this is it, and I think all of these events need to be making deals with 1 or more streaming service to get major front page features. Network TV is holding onto them like a life-raft, and it’s causing both to drown. Tastes haven’t changed that much; audiences just aren’t seeing the events in their ecosystems.
Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?
#98>When I was a kid, we use to look forward to the Olympics. It was a big deal. The whole family would gather around the TV to watch the events live regardless of timezone. [...] Nowadays, [...] No one cares. Heck, some people don’t even know that the Olympics are even happening. It seems like the macro trend of network television spectacle events is on the decline and probably due to the internet. The decline in ratin…
I like this take. Big, spectacle events have almost lost their luster.
Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?
#99I don't know where you live, but my experience is that in the US, the network coverage just ruined the Olympics because they don't "get it." I grew up in a different country--not the US, China or Russia. We typically hope to get a half dozen medals and a gold would be a Big Deal. As a result, if you turn on the TV, you get random coverage of any of the hundreds of individual competitions. Modern pentathlon! The one w…
I worked on the BBC's British coverage of Sydney, Salt Lake City and Athens Olympics (2000-2004). The sibling comments here are absolutely right - the US coverage is terrible compared to the quality of the output of other broadcasters. The problem is that US audiences only want to watch American competitors and most popular sports here are ones where the majority of teams and players are American. The Olympics isn't…
> The problem is that US audiences only want to watch American competitors
I think there's a [citation needed] here. This is what people think is true, but I'd argue is wrong--as evidenced by a collapse in viewership!
People want entertainment that is fun and emotional, and the US coverage isn't providing that, perhaps because they are constrained by thinking that US audiences only care about US athletes.
Re: Ask HN: What caused the Olympics to become so terrible?
#100I don't know where you live, but my experience is that in the US, the network coverage just ruined the Olympics because they don't "get it." I grew up in a different country--not the US, China or Russia. We typically hope to get a half dozen medals and a gold would be a Big Deal. As a result, if you turn on the TV, you get random coverage of any of the hundreds of individual competitions. Modern pentathlon! The one w…
The best Olympic coverage I’ve seen was the NBC HD broadcast of the 2002 Salt Lake City winter games. HD was still pretty new in the US. They didn’t have many HD cameras and they didn’t have an HD workflow integrated with the SD broadcast, so it was completely separate from the “overcoming adversity USA athlete” coverage.
For example, they set up the HD cameras and trailer at the ski jumping venue. They showed ski jumping start to finish—all the competitors real-time without editing. The commentators were ski jumping experts, since the professional commentators were all off on the SD feeds. Almost no breaks because they only had one HD commercial.
I learned so much about the sport and cheered for competitors from random countries. It was miles beyond the standard NBC coverage and probably even better than watching it in person.
20 years later and it’s the most memorable Olympics-watching experience of my life, going back my earliest memory of the jetpack in ‘84.