The Olympics used to be “must see TV” for me when I was younger.

But, ever since professional athletes were allowed to start competing, the hold it used to have on my has waned.

I still want the United States athletes to do well and I want the games to be great, but I no longer go out of my way to make sure I watch a majority of the events.

Perhaps it is the fact that they are on at all hours of the day and night and on so many different channels.

When I was growing up there was no internet and there were only three networks that you could get on your television set.

Most of the Olympic coverage was tape-delayed, so you watched every night on either ABC or NBC to see the package of events they were providing on any given day and you got updates on the other results that were deemed important.

I will admit that being able to watch events “live” has a certain appeal, but I am not getting up at 4 a.m. to watch a game half way around the world.

With the 24-hour news cycle, results are instantly transmitted for a variety of platforms making watching the game a lot less fun.

I guess the biggest difference for me since the addition of professionals is that I no longer feel that “us against the world” mentality that I used to when we would send our greatest amateur athletes up against the likes of Russia and their full-time athletes, who were more like professionals.

I did get a bit of good news Thursday on the Olympic front when it was announced that baseball and softball were back in the games starting in 2020.

I never did understand why they were eliminated a few years back.

 

Scott Novak is sports editor for Leader Publications. He can be reached by email at scott.novak@leaderpub.com.