It's Not Us Versus Them In the Olympics Anymore

This year's Winter Games will probably have the lowest TV ratings ever for an Olympic event. I think some of that has to do with the availability of information on the Internet which allows us web browsers to find out the results hours before it appears on TV.

OpinionJournal.com points out another reason why people are shying away from TV coverage of the games - it's just not the same since the Soviet Union broke up and quit being our arch enemy.

Before the Berlin Wall fell, the Olympics were considered, to adapt Clausewitz, politics by other means. Occasionally this was explicit, such as when Cold War opponents boycotted each other's Summer Games in 1980 and 1984. But when enemy countries did agree to participate, geopolitical overtones permeated the Games and produced some of the more memorable Olympic contests. More people tuned in when more was at stake.

Nothing viewers are likely to see in Turin can compete with the bloody 1956 water polo match in Melbourne in which the Hungarians defeated the Soviets weeks after the Soviet army had crushed an uprising back in Hungary. Or the 1972 basketball game in Munich in which the Soviets, with considerable help from the men in stripes, handed the U.S. team its first ever loss. And should the U.S. hockey team meet Russia in a medal round next week, no one expects the drama of the Lake Placid "miracle" of 1980.

Moreover, "team" sports are no longer the draw they once were, having been displaced by viewer interest in individual achievement. Judging from the media coverage, Americans this week were less concerned with how the U.S. mogul squad did on whole than whether freestyle phenom Jeremy Bloom lived up to the hype (he didn't). After figure skater Michelle Kwan bowed out of the competition due to an injury, a fan was quoted in the Washington Post saying, "So what's the point of watching the Olympics now?"

Like the NBA, the Olympiads have morphed into the ultimate individual games. A few holdouts may be distressed that the American male snowboarders won only two medals in the half-pipe competition, after sweeping in Salt Lake City four years ago. But most of us seem more keen on whether Bode Miller will come through in the super-G, whether the goateed speed-skate demon Apolo Anton Ohno can win the 1,000 meters after flubbing the 1,500, and whether Lindsey Jacobellis's hot-dogging cost her the gold in the women's snowboardcross final yesterday.

I can well remember the outrage I felt when Russia defeated the U.S. in that memorable 1972 basketball game (thanks to outright fraud on the part of the officials), and the elation I felt as I drove from San Diego to Orange County and heard on the radio that a bunch of American college kids had defeated the mighty Red Army hockey team in 1980. The 1980 win had even greater significance to the country because of the malaise we were in at the time, with Jimmy Carter in the White House, hostages in Iran, and 20 percent prime rates. America needed a win, and that hockey game set the stage for the gold medal which united us all - at least for a few brief moments.

When the Soviet Union broke up, suddenly there wasn't the same sense of nationalistic pride when one side beat the other. As the article points out, it's now more about individual triumphs than team results. I doubt if that many Americans even care who's winning the medal counts these days (by the way, Germany is in the lead as I write this - who cares?).

And frankly, some of the individual athletes hyped by the press are not that easy to root for. Who cares if the arrogant, obnoxious Bode Miller wins anything? I'd be just as happy if he became one with a tree during the competition. Lindsey Jacobellis decided to show-off on her way to a gold medal, and instead fell and got the silver instead. Stupid. As as I've mentioned before, Johnny Weir's flamboyant homosexuality and "princessy" behavior make him an easy "guy" to root against in figure skating.

The next Winter Games will be in Vancouver, CN, and maybe there will be more interest since so many of the events can be shown live in the U.S. or at least much closer to the actual time of competition. For now, though, I think the TV networks can pretty much write this one off.