![[object Object]](https://protectedsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/The-American-Crazy-Olympics-Here-after-Paris.webp.webp "The American Crazy Olympics: Here after Paris")
Many are just now coming back to reality after some “unforgettable” events at the Paris Games, while we are getting a nice big dose of what Los Angeles has in mind for the 2028 Summer Games. One thing is for sure, California promises an unforgettable dream. This will be an Olympics that has never been seen in the history of sports and the Olympics.
When at the closing ceremony of the Olympics in Paris, the actor giant Tom Cruise sped by on a motorcycle with the Olympic flag, many suspected that America was preparing for something extraordinary four years later. The Paris organization – in many ways – set the bar high. There will certainly be no problem with sold-out events at every venue in 2028, in Los Angeles. At the last Summer Olympics held in the USA in 1996 (Atlanta), I had the opportunity to see how much interest there was in the competitions. The Olympic final of the women’s handball tournament was fought between Denmark and South Korea. By then, American viewers had learned that a handball match is 2×30 minutes long, with a 10-minute break in between.
However, at the end of regular play in the final, the score was tied, so overtime followed.
By the time this started, half of the arena emptied out because the American viewers had gone home. They thought the game was a tie, there was no overtime play, they were not informed about it.
This is just one episode that shows the attitude of the locals towards some sports they have no idea about. (Handball has not seen any development since then, it still rests on the same amateur basis as the 1984 Olympics held in Los Angeles or the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.)
In addition to sports, Paris also provided a real cultural shock to those who visited the Olympics.
The incorporation of the Grand Palais, built for the 1904 Paris World Fair, into the competitions (fencing and taekwondo were held here), the pentathlon held in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, the triathlon and long-distance swimming held near the Alexandra III Bridge, the road race or marathon through the entire Paris offered spectators the opportunity to enjoy the wonders of the city alongside the sports.
Los Angeles will not be able to offer such experiences, not only because the huge metropolis is turtle-shaped, but also because there is no building, monument, old bridge, or castle that is as abundant in Los Angeles as in Paris.Â
So Los Angeles cannot show anything from the past.Â
Organizers therefore have to try something different if they want to create something memorable.Â
It is already clear that Americans are heavily inclined to take advantage of the benefits offered by artificial intelligence. Let us not forget that until the next summer Olympics, the sky is the limit in this regard, meaning we have no idea of the progress this area is undergoing globally.Â
The entertainment provided by AI, the created effects, the evocation of “culture” is not a difficult task, but the question remains, who needs this in the world of art?Â
Having concerts every evening of the Olympic days, all Hollywood stars performing, cannot replace real intellectual stimulation, culture.Â
Has TV coverage of the Olympics received a fatal blow?
The 2024 Paris Summer Olympics was the first one where traditional (linear) television took a back seat. It has not been a tragedy for traditional TV companies yet,Â
but the cracks are already visible on the wall.
The also American-based company Max (which also owns HBO) offered an excellent and previously unimaginably high-quality streaming service that was truly unprecedented in the history of the Olympics.Â
During the break in the fencing competition at the Grand Palais, I could easily watch the India-Belgium volleyball match or any other sports event that was happening at that time on my laptop. This was a situation where the viewer did not receive what the TV networks gave them, but what really interested them. Warner Bros. Discovery achieved record viewership on all platforms during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, including free and paid TV, streaming, and social media. Thanks to the recent introduction of Max in 25 European markets, Paris 2024 was the first true “streaming Olympics” on our continent, as more people watched more Olympics content for longer than ever before. Here are some results and insights:
- Over 4.5 billion video views on Warner Bros. Discovery’s Olympic posts on social media.
- This is almost ten times more than during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and more than four times more than during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics combined.
- Especially TikTok and Instagram lead in views.
- The eurosport.hu website was accessed by more than ten times as many visitors during the Olympics as in the preceding months.
Tik-Tok Olympics in Los Angeles?
Online streaming services have knocked down some walls that have stood for centuries, yet the leadership of the International Olympic Committee still does not understand the times. The Olympics, being the world’s biggest multi-sport event, is so protective of its rights that watching an event online afterwards is almost impossible.Â
However, the world is moving in a different direction.Â
The IOC should be courting those young people to the Olympics who are no longer able to watch TV for long hours.Â
They need many short (and even shorter) Olympic summaries, those that are already TikTok-friendly, meaning a 20-second summary of a major Olympic moment would be enough. The leaders of the IOC seem to be unaware that the world has changed and unable to reach out to the generation that is already far removed from the event. You can bring breakdancing into the program, rock climbing, it is almost certain that it is impossible to stop the aging of viewers of the Olympics on TV or other platforms. However, if there are not enough viewers, then the now exorbitant Olympic TV rights fees will begin to decrease.
In this regard, being able to watch a summary of the Olympics for a day on MAX was already a big innovation. The only problem with this was that the editors still decided what to put in such a program, so if an editor of a particular summary did not like the weightlifting, the consumer, whose favorite sport it was, was left stranded. Los Angeles will surely bring change in this area as well.Â
The departure of IOC President Thomas Bach could accelerate these processes,
 especially if the new IOC president is able to understand the times.
Car-Free Olympics? Almost ruled out!
Imagine the luminaries of the International Olympic Committee waking up in their 5-star hotels in the morning, having breakfast, and then driving to the various competitions in the limousines allocated to them. This does not require much imagination, as this is how the party went in reality. The announcement from Los Angeles that they want to have a car-free Olympics in 2028 due to environmental concerns will earn big red dots for those worried about the environment, but otherwise all this is nothing more than a mere dusting.
Let’s start with the basic premise that it is almost impossible to walk in Los Angeles. Of course, in Hollywood there are places where tourists march in each other’s footsteps on the sidewalks, but this is not relevant to the Olympics. It is already clear that the venues for the 2028 games will be far apart.Â
After all, the California coastline will be included in the organization, as well as the huge stadiums located on the opposite side of the city.
The organizers would solve the movement of people, tourists, journalists, sports officials, and – last but not least – athletes with buses.
The idea is appealing, but it is also feverish. Los Angeles is one of the cities in the world where, figuratively speaking, there is traffic around the clock. The highway network encircling the city, the six-lane freeway monsters are truly unique in the world. However, in order to “put an entire Olympics (and the Paralympics) on a bus,” something would have to be done about the daily millions of cars on the Los Angeles roads.
However, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has taken it into her head to be the one to organize the world’s first car-free Summer Olympics.
It is not enough for her that there is a dedicated Olympic lane on the roads, she needs something completely different. She believes that the city’s leadership would order home office work during the Olympics, thus removing many cars from traffic. The plan is great, but those who know the average American lifestyle know well that even a corner away from home to the store is done by car.Â
Los Angeles’ mayor believes that they will borrow buses from the other 48 states of America (except Hawaii) for the Olympics. No less than 3000 buses. Maybe this will be enough. It will be the duty of journalists who are always and in all circumstances academically cautious to note that public transportation practically does not exist in Los Angeles. Certainly not in the form in which this worked in Paris, as the subway, high-speed train, tram, and bus network in the French capital were truly capable of serving a complete Olympics. Four years seems too short for Los Angeles to be able to rise to this challenge.
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