Why are the Olympics so boring?

Anonus

They're not for six months but I have to get this off my chest NOW.

I used to love the Olympics when I was younger. They were amazing. Fucking amazing. But now they just feel like bullshit to me.

Princess Alice

I feel the same way, somehow.

Anonus

I don't know, I've lost my appetite for media extravaganzas

Haven

This one has a chance of causing a global pandemic. That's exciting, right?

Anonus

No, that's scary

Imipolex G

needs more bloodsports.

Anonus

like what

Sredni Vashtar

Trial by combat.

Anonus

but that's not fair

Sredni Vashtar

Floyd Mayweather versus Bear with Chainsaw. Live to air.

Tachyon

i was pretty hype for London 2012 iirc

idk, are they boring?  what about them interested you before?

Anonus

you were hype?

i don't know, i was a kid and the pageantry was amazing...

god you guys had the best opening ceremony

a tribute to SOCIALIZED MEDICINE

Tachyon

i think i was

i remember feeling excited

and yes, the NHS, which our government is now trying to dismantle

Klinotaxis

i don't know how you can be bored by an event complex featuring biathlon and bobsleigh

(fuck summer)

Anonus

^^fucking tories

^I always lived vicariously through skeleton

Bee

I guess I'd enjoy the Olympics more if there was more doing the events and less talking endlessly about them in between people doing the events.  Which I guess is the same reason I don't like football (other than the flagrant corruption etc).

Klinotaxis

that must have been really boring to study

Bee

which really proves the point

Tachyon

That's partly due to the nature of the game, though.  If you like your action to be largely uninterrupted, football probably isn't your sport.

Haven

For some reason that just reminds me of when MTG was on ESPN.

Imipolex G

but who doesn't like to see exciting shots of players standing around?

Tachyon

imo tennis

Anonus

There have been times when I wanted to take an NFL game and just cut it down to all the dead time and ads

Capture the AMBIANCE of it all

sunn wolf

idk i was at London 2012 and it was pretty cool. like, i had tickets to women's handball, which sounds like a nothing sport but was actually the most vicious sporting spectacle i have ever seen. so far as i can tell the aim of handball is to try and murder the opposing team by shoulder charging them to death. it was great and i had good fun cheering on the Angolan women's handball team. that's my olympics story

sunn wolf

my favourite thing about the London olympics was how when there was no british competitor the crowd would always choose the most obscure country that was competing and cheer for them

Klinotaxis

handball is definitely a murder sport. i didn't know it was in the olympics, i thought it was just something you did when you're in your twenties and angry at the world

Hexartes

Bee said:

I guess I'd enjoy the Olympics more if there was more doing the events and less talking endlessly about them in between people doing the events.  Which I guess is the same reason I don't like football (other than the flagrant corruption etc).

Not the biggest fan of football in the world, but yikes this breakdown seems pretty reductive and disingenuous

Anonus

why?

Hexartes

Negates the importance of stuff that isn't just the ball being thrown around which justifiably makes up a large portion of football

Obā-san

like commercials

Hexartes

Like a decent chunk of the "shots of the coach cheerleaders etc." wedge and the "shots of the players standing around wedge could very well be Actual Foobaw Things Happening because I have no idea how this guy did his calculations

And given nerd attitudes towards sports I'm not inclined to be charitable to his tactics

Idk this is one of those nerd facts tossed around and it gets tiring because I've recently grown to dislike most aspects of nerd culture

Obā-san

so what you're saying is that about 50 percent of the total broadcast could be football

Obā-san

like, even if you're being as charitable as possible, you're not hitting 60% even, it's an abysmal ratio

Crystal

I find the Reddit thread about this chart more interesting, but a large part of that is due to my ignorance of football and there being a lot of energy in that link, so, heh.

E: Man I actually really like it or not, Reddit or not. I should check out subs for stuff I don't care about more often, maybe, it has been a good while since I did that.

One-Winged Eagle

The thing is, every part of the broadcast is football. Coaches, cheerleaders, replays, players standing around, even commercials, all of that is the sport that is football. And then there's the eleven minutes of the motion of football, which is called "actual game time."

The thing is, you're always watching a football game live, or you're watching its entire length from beginning to end, as players and coaches strategize and rest. They want you to spend that time with the players as they do the same.

If the players spent 60% of the football game in the motion of football, they would die.

Obā-san

MachSpeed said:

If the players spent 60% of the football game in the motion of football, they would die.

B L O O D  A N D  G L O R Y

One-Winged Eagle

Basically, you can watch all motions in a match within ten, fifteen minutes, if you edit the footage.

But they don't want you to watch the game within ten, fifteen minutes, because they want to simulate the feeling of being there. They want you to spend the same amount of time with the game that the players do.

All the motions of a football match isn't the entirety of the football sport, if you get my meaning.

Hexartes

Today is Tomorrow said:

like, even if you're being as charitable as possible, you're not hitting 60% even, it's an abysmal ratio

You're assuming sports are engaged with like other forms of media

they're not. People put football on at parties for a reason

Salix Babylonika

I mean I'm no defender of the NFL but football involves like, strategy, you know?

Even if you cut out everything else, players still wouldn't be in motion at all times.

Obā-san

MachSpeed said:

Basically, you can watch all motions in a match within ten, fifteen minutes, if you edit the footage.

But they don't want you to watch the game within ten, fifteen minutes, because they want to simulate the feeling of being there. They want you to spend the same amount of time with the game that the players do.

All the motions of a football match isn't the entirety of the football sport, if you get my meaning.

i understand, it's just so

profoundly uncompelling

One-Winged Eagle

It is so uncompelling.

Bee

MachSpeed said:

If the players spent 60% of the football game in the motion of football, they would die.

See, this is why I like watching soccer.  They don't spend the majority of the game dicking around.

Bee

MachSpeed said:

It is so uncompelling.

Obā-san

i hereby put forth the motion to add "replace football with homoerotic wrestling" to the gay agenda

Hexartes

Nerd condescension towards sports are something that has- lately- really started to wear on me t b h

not saying that's necessarily happening here but it's why I'm kind of wary about these conversations

Obā-san

it used to do that for me but now it's kinda wrapped back around onto itself and i feel comfortable going "lol fuck sports amirite" again

because i have nothing to prove and can say as i please

Obā-san

tho i will say

sunn wolf said:

idk i was at London 2012 and it was pretty cool. like, i had tickets to women's handball, which sounds like a nothing sport but was actually the most vicious sporting spectacle i have ever seen. so far as i can tell the aim of handball is to try and murder the opposing team by shoulder charging them to death. it was great and i had good fun cheering on the Angolan women's handball team. that's my olympics story

this sounds pretty dope

Anonus

I can't go all-in on "fuck sports" despite my complicated relationship with them

Bee

I can't go all-in on "fuck sports" because it's mostly just football.

Obā-san

you see, im all for the display/celebration of physical prowess, but the pageantry and gloryhounding is just eeeuuuggghhhh

and then on top of that with football the sport-doing is celebrated by... stuffing your face with enough 7-layer dip to feed a grown man for a week and getting shitfaced.

kind of missing he point there

so yeah, it's fun to be wildly and spitefully uncharitable towards it

LOAD Cherry

I don't actually watch TV enough to get invested in sports, but if I did, it would be in something like Soccer or Tennis.