Every four years, smatterings of the world’s greatest
athletes gather for the great spectacle of the Summer Olympics. I have no beef
with the Olympics as an athletic event, but it is delusion to think they make
for good television. What follows is my Olympic-sized list of gripes with the 2012
Summer Olympics as televised sport.
1. Pomp
& Circumstance: The opening and closing ceremonies offer 19th Century
grandeur to a 21st Century viewership disinterested in ceremony.
2. Sports
We Never Watch: For a quadrennial moment, prime-time television features track
& field, swimming, and bike racing. Separated from the Olympic brand, these
same sports are relegated to the most remote reaches of television and no one
complains.
3. Sports
that Aren’t Sports: Though the wisecracks they induce are entertaining, the
Olympics include loopy events such as synchronized swimming and pentathlon. (Note:
in this Olympiad, the pentathlon is updated to include a laser pistol. This
must make it cool.)
4. Human
Interest Stories: Telecasts are crammed with athlete profiles--plucky boys and
girls who saved their nickels to jump on a trampoline or play table tennis at
the highest level of international competition.
5. U.S.A.,
U.S.A, U.S.A: I’m as patriotic as the next guy, but U.S. broadcasters need to
cut out the chest-bumping every time an American wins a medal. Sorry folks, it’s
generally a better story when an athlete from a tiny, poor country wins a
medal.
6. Boris
Johnson: The U.K. has an admirable leadership culture. Regardless of party or
crisis, its leaders are composed and well-spoken. But the London Mayor is all
bravado and insane haircut; let’s hope he’s an aberration. We’ve already seen
too much of him.
7. Celebrity
Drop-Ins: I don’t care if Matt Damon or Madonna or Brangelina attend the
Olympics or not, but some people do. So, show celebs on camera if you must, but
keep the microphones away from them. The plugs for their latest television
shows are gratuitous.
8. Lame
Scandals: Sorry folks. The Chinese badminton players tanking games to set up
medal round seeding just doesn’t cut it as sports scandal. No
telegenic victims, no drugs, no bling, no mug-shot. We have way more entertaining scandals
in American professional sports.
9. Less
30 Rock and Parks and Recreation: I don’t watch much television, but I try to watch
NBC’s Thursday line-up. Bumping 30 Rock
or Parks and Recreation—the two best
sitcoms on network TV—is bad practice for a last-place network struggling to
maintain loyal viewers.
10. Bob
Costas: Costas is a smart guy. He was a good sports broadcaster. Then someone
appointed him sports-pundit/genius. Now he’s Frank Deford without the street
cred. Brent Musburger and Bryant Gumbel were good sports broadcasters
who started acting like they were bigger than the sports they covered. They
fell from grace. Costas should fall too.
As sport, the Olympics are cool. It’s good that the world’s
athletes get together every four years. The vast majority of the athletes are wonderful,
dedicated people. The host city benefits from the tourism and commercial
spin-offs from the games. But none of this makes the Olympics good television.
On any given evening, some cable station is re-running Apollo XIII or The Thirty
Year Old Virgin; I’ll take either over diving or rowing, much less archery
or badminton.
