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Sydney Olympics must overcome
The Sydney Olympics are a month away, so let's look at the problems they face in attracting their usual high degree of interest in the United States. 1) The Olympics have lost their innocence, soiled by all the internal corruption. 2) There are but a few Olympic athletes most viewers have ever heard of or care about. 3) Because the Olympics are being held later than usual, they must compete for attention with the presidential campaign. 4) With the Games in Australia, all of the television coverage in the U.S. will be taped, with the results known for hours. And, of course: 5) Tiger Woods is not in the Olympics. So now, let's address these issues. Senator John McCain has publicly called the Olympics "a culture of corruption, with . . . gift-taking, bribe-taking and exploitation." But even though the United States finances about two-thirds of the IOC budget, nobody in America much gives a hoot. That's why the rogues who run the Olympics thrive with impunity. As long as we get our quadrennial circus, we don't care what the Olympic pooh-bahs do with our bread or the athletes do with their drugs. So the shame of the Olympics will not shame us from watching. Second: Never have we approached an Olympics with so few recognizable stars. Marion Jones' quest for five gold medals is the only story that has captured the public fancy. What's left? The Dream Team is boring in its superiority. Our little gymnasts are hard-pressed to win medals in Games held outside the U.S. There seems to be more interest in the new shark skin-type swimsuits than in the swimmers. But, you see, the Olympics are not like other athletic competitions. They have more in common with shows like Survivor or Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, where we find ourselves rooting for people whom we never heard of before, doing things we don't care about -- or, anyway, haven't cared about for the past three years and 50 weeks. It is a curious phenomenon, but it is real, and it is why NBC lavishes attention more on viewers who don't care all that much about sport. Third: Al Gore and George Bush have to worry about the Olympics diverting interest from them more than the other way round. I will bet you that as soon as the swimming begins, a raft of editorial cartoonists will start portraying Gore and Joe Lieberman dressed in those shark swimsuits, trying to catch up. The Olympics will, however, surely lose hard-core sports viewers to the baseball pennant races and the NFL. That is the September factor. And finally, a great many purists are upset NBC will not attempt to show live competition, and will continue to focus on a few favored events -- especially those that appeal to women. Stop complaining. NBC paid great sums for the rights to a television product. The network faces no obligation whatsoever to present the Olympics as competition. Neither, for that matter, does NBC have any responsibility to be journalistic. The Olympics are successful as a show. That is what America wants, and, sensibly, that is what NBC will give America . . . and its advertisers. If you don't like that and want to see the Olympic Games, go to someplace like Europe, where television still presents the Olympics as more sport than divertissement. Overall, though, there is much to overcome this time, and I suspect the ratings for Sydney will drop as much as 10 percent. These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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