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The Olympics Aren’t Fair
Nothing is. Sports are however, universal.
No one is watching the Olympics this year and it isn’t fair.
Athletes have spent their entire lives training, sacrificing to achieve mastery of their sport. It is the only time many people will ever have a chance to see truly spectacular feats of physicality and athletic pinnacle.
And people can’t turn the channel fast enough.
It is a little like the time the world’s greatest violinist played the greatest violin music ever composed on the best violin ever cast by luthier-kind and no one came. Crowds of commuters, commuted on past while he played his heart out without a second glance.
Is it too many entertainment options? Is political polarization playing more than a passing role in the viewership decline of the Olympics?
Progressives don’t want to watch the Olympics; too much American exceptionalism. Conservatives don’t want to watch either; too much protesting of American exceptionalism.
Democrats want activist athlete Gwen Berry to medal, but not enough to chant “U.S.A!”. Republicans want the U.S.A. to win the gold, but not enough to root for Megan Rapinoe.
The Olympics aren’t fair, either. Far from it. It takes money to train and compete at that level. Athletic ability isn’t…