What ruined the Olympics was the fall of the Soviet bloc. From the 50s-80s, the Olympics were the Free World versus the Communist World as to whose ideology was better and, while some like Nadia Comanesci and others were adored despite their horrid governments, it was IMPORTANT for the US to have a higher medal count than the USSR. It mattered, by gum.
Now, there’s no monolithic “bad guy” to root against and the world is more multi-cultural and politically correct so you can’t enjoy ethnic stereotyping as we used to.
The other thing that ruined the Olympics was the addition of so many garbage sports from the X Games and others. I was okay that baseball and American football were not included as long as things like beach volleyball and skateboarding weren’t either.
I would dare say that well over 50% of the “foreign” athletes actually live and train here in the US. The world is indeed much smaller today. People now root more for the individuals than the country.
“Now, there’s no monolithic “bad guy” to root against”
I dunno - “USA! USA!” will probably be seen as hate speech by much of the rest of the world. Pitiful...
I gave up watching the Olympics in the 80s. It wasn’t the medal count, but the endless parade of ‘sports’ that I had never heard of and didn’t WANT to know about. It was the 800 variations of who can swim fastest. It was when boxing became a style sport rather than who can knock the other guy on his butt sport.
When there are 10,000 events, it is a safe bet that 9,950 or more are boring.
That, and sports have umpires or referees. Not judges. You can judge someone’s performance playing a flute, but flute playing isn’t a sport.
I think it was the switch to professional athletes.
I agree with all that you say.
Will also add that allowing professionals to participate has helped degrade the Olympics as well, since it’s obvious most pros won’t feel particularly devastated if they fail to win a gold. Maybe embarrassed, but to them the Olympics are just an exhibition anyway.
And along those same lines, there are now so many other major competitions throughout the year that the dramatic “everything is riding on how well they do here” scenario is seldom felt anymore. They just move on to the next big event.