I Want to Care About the 2022 Winter Olympics; I Just Can't

The Winter Olympics have always been one of my favorite sporting events. In 2022, I could not care less.

Growing up in Connecticut, the Winter Olympics appealed to me because I loved winter. Playing in the snow was fun. Skiing was something we did. We played hockey outside. I knew about curling before it went mainstream.

The Winter Olympics of my youth all had wonderful memories. I remember the Battle of the Brians skating competition during the 1988 Games in Calgary. I was deeply invested in the triumphs and failures of Bonnie Blair and Dan Jansen. I remember pretending to be sick (don’t tell my Mom) so I could skip school to watch the U.S. hockey team play the Russians, then the Unified Team, in 1992.

The 1994 Winter Games were obviously a whole different thing entirely, with the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan scandal quite literally dominating the world. Even as I grew older, the Winter Games remained a constant source of entertainment. The 2002 Games took place during my junior year of college and damned if me and my fraternity brothers weren’t glued to the television watching it. The 2010 Games featured one of the great hockey games in the history of the sport, when Sidney Crosby became a national hero in Canada, and a permanent villain in my household.

The 2014 Winter Games may have been my favorite ever, as they took place during the same week as Washington, D.C. being shut down due to a blizzard. It also coincided with NBC using the now-defunct NBCSN to show figure skating live during the day, introducing the world to the greatness that is Johnny Weir.

I write all this as a preamble because I am so very depressed that I haven’t watched more than a couple minutes of the 2022 Winter Olympics. I don’t see that changing over the next two weeks.

The ratings for the first full weekend aren’t in yet, but it’s not looking good for NBC. The first night coverage drew the lowest Olympic viewership in history. The opening ceremony drew the lowest opening ceremony viewership in history. It’s not working out.

There are a variety of reasons. China is a disgusting host. COVID has robbed the Games of its charms. The loss of NBCSN has all the coverage on USA and NBC, with most of it still played on a very lengthy tape delay. There isn’t actually snow in Beijing, so it’s all fake. The NHL players aren’t there. There are no crowds. The athletes hate it. And so on and so forth.

It’s not a new phenomenon, as we saw the Summer Olympics six months ago hit similar lows in TV ratings. But that was different, owed almost exclusively to the world not feeling the empty arenas as the United States and Europe returned to full stadiums for sporting events. It was a cruel reminder of 2020. Even though it was still the 2020 Summer Olympics, we wanted a 2021 version.

Still, I watched the Summer Olympics in 2021. The swimming was fascinating, if only for the trainwreck appeal of the Americans that NBC publicized losing over and over. The men’s basketball tournament featured NBA players and the American team had to overcome early struggles to win Gold. I watched volleyball and track. It wasn’t a prime Summer Olympics, but I enjoyed what I did watch.

These Winter Olympics, though, are not enjoyable. I turned it on for a few minutes late Saturday because the women’s snowboarding event was on. Usually, a crowd-pleasing feast for the eyes, it felt like absolutely nothing. No crowds. No life. No enjoyment. It was hard to watch, so I quickly went back to a UCLA/Arizona State game that went to three overtimes and ended with a court-storming. That’s the type of sports I want to be watching.

I feel genuinely bad for the athletes. Instead of the Winter Olympics being their crowning achievement in front of a captive global audience, it’s taking place in almost obscurity. No one cares. There’s no buzz. There’s no Olympic village. There aren’t reporters and TV crews crawling through the host city to display what makes the Games different. It’s a sad, lifeless imitation of the Olympics, hosted by a country that does not deserve the spotlight.

With two dreadful weeks ahead, I wonder what the future of the Olympics will look like when this version mercifully ends. Are the Games over? With so many sports on so many channels on so many days of the year, the uniqueness of the Olympics has faded. It used to be a special time of year to get a full day of sports on television for two straight weeks. Now, that’s just a Tuesday in any month of the year.

Maybe I’m over-reacting and the specter of COVID looms larger than we understand yet. Maybe the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, followed by the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, will prove that the issue was where the games were hosted. Maybe a return to Europe for the 2026 Winter Olympics will reveal the Winter Games’ decline in 2022 was an aberration.

Regardless, I can’t shake the feeling that the Olympics have jumped the shark. The IOC has been a corrupt organization for so long that it’s finally caught up with them. Though FIFA faces similar issues, and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is another looming disaster, the World Cup shines because soccer is the beautiful game.

The Olympics are a collection of sports that have become minor in the eyes of most of the world. Most country’s best athletes don’t become bobsledders or archers, or dream of becoming a biathlon or diving gold medalist. The world seems to have left the Olympics, its concept, and its sports behind.

Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong, as it wouldn’t be the first time. For now, it’s back to watching college basketball.

I’m not mad at the Olympics, I’m just disappointed.

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