The Winter Olympics and America seem only to be fair weather friends …
Underwhelming television ratings for the recently completed games in Turin indicate that the USA is only inclined to watch when their athletes are winning. Specifically, they watch when they expect to see certain athletes winning. Those would be the athletes who have been heavily hyped in the run-up to the Games.
Two examples of this point are skater Nancy Kwan and skiier Bode Miller. Both are definitely capable of winning any competition they enter. Both were considered favorites to earn medals in Turin. As a result, both experienced extensive publicity campaigns that were not of their own making. Both, however, failed to meet expectations; Kwan had to withdraw from her competition due to injury and Miller’s medal chase went 0-for-5 in his events.
NBC Sports, holder of the American broadcast rights, was left with a star-crossed presentation. The spectre of total failure is not ‘must see’ TV.
This is one of the primary differences between how the Olympics are perceived in the USA as opposed to the rest of the world. Perhaps it’s a holdover from the...