A Grip on Sports: For a variety of reasons these Winter Olympics may not be the television juggernaut of the past
A GRIP ON SPORTS • Are you watching the Winter Olympics? Just wondering, as they don’t seem to hold much attraction in our house. Not even for the figure skating enthusiast.
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• There are varied reasons for that, I’m sure. It starts with COVID-19 and the stress it’s put on everyone the past two years. It is hard to muster the energy to stay up late watching. Or to figure out what channel would actually hold your interest. The way the pandemic pushed the Summer Games back to last year didn’t help. There may be a bit of Olympic overload, considering we’ve become accustom to getting psyched for the competitions every two years.
There is also the site. Beijing just doesn’t seem like an attractive fit for the cold-weather games. Not after it held the summer event less than two decades ago.
The Winter Olympics have a tradition of being more scenic than their summer counterparts. That tradition has eroded, however, as the Games have grown. Places like Grenoble and Lillehammer and St. Mortiz aren’t on the rotation anymore. They’ve been replaced by bigger cities such as Vancouver and Beijing – or countries like Russia with bigger agendas.
The beauty of the Games has been lost, it seems, taken over by an almost assembly-line feel.
It also doesn’t help that the U.S. doesn’t seem to produce stars as much anymore. Oh, sure, folks like Nathan Chen, Chloe Kim and Mikaela Shiffrin are all in their 20s and poised to make a huge impact, but they seem less majestic than their predecessors from years past.
And we know why. When network television ruled the roost, it was impossible to avoid the run-up to the Games. Whomever NBC wanted us to know, we knew. We were programmed to cheer them on.
Though the Olympics proper are still the property of such entities, our TV watching habits have changed. Instead of tuning into Cheers or L.A. Law or Law and Order for months before the competition, we’re accessing Prime or Netflix. And those services aren’t pushing any pre-packaged athletes down our throats.
The Games arrive and we may click over. Or, instead, we continue our fascination with Ozark or Euphoria. The soap opera occurring in China doesn’t have much of a chance.
Unless the U.S. team starts winning medals. That might change things. We are frontrunners, after all.
• The two frontrunners in the West Coast Conference basketball races? That would be, once again, the Gonzaga men and the Gonzaga women. Both lead the league heading into today’s tarnished showdowns with soon-to-be-gone BYU.
The Cougar men, who host the Zags tonight at 7 (ESPN), have struggled as of late. Losing three consecutive games. They need an upset in Provo to right the ship – and bolster an NCAA Tournament resume that’s taken a hit.
The BYU women are coming off an unexpected loss at Portland, though the Pilots are the conference’s third-best team. Still, the NCAA leaving BYU off its list of 16 seeded teams, even though the Cougars are 13th in the organizations NET rankings, doesn’t seem all that much of snub anymore. The Bulldogs host BYU today at 2 (SWX).
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Gonzaga: The Cougars are still a threat. Even more so considering their circumstances. Jim Meehan has the preview of tonight’s game as well as the key matchup. … Jim also has another award story, this one about Drew Timme. … Jim Allen has this preview of the women’s contest. … Back to the men, Theo Lawson examines the lessons learned during the win at San Diego. … Around the WCC, the BYU students know the importance of tonight’s game.
WSU: The women’s basketball team continued their winning streak on the road, taking a 63-56 win over Colorado. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and college basketball, if you have queries about what the heck is going on around the conference, Jon Wilner has answers in the Mercury News. … Washington has been surging. There has to be reasons why. … Utah has been doing whatever the opposite of surging is. … California has lost a key contributor to an injury. So has Colorado. … The big showdown on the women’s side turned out to be a rout, as a huge McKale crowd watched No. 8 Arizona run Oregon off the court. Without any fireworks. … Those occurred in Tempe, where Oregon State coach Scott Rueck was ejected with 17 seconds left in the Beavers’ loss to Arizona State. … UCLA’s men will be in Tempe today following the fireworks in Tucson on Thursday. … Arizona will try to follow up that big win with another against USC today. … In football news, it seems like a good day to answer questions, especially from Washington. … Lincoln Riley has attracted a few assistants who always seemed anti-USC in the past. No, Alex Grinch isn’t one of them. … Herm Edward’s Arizona State tenure seems pretty tenuous right now.
EWU and Idaho: Around the Big Sky, Northern Arizona and Northern Colorado meet today in Flagstaff.
Preps: There was a boys basketball showdown last night at Gonzaga Prep. Central Valley, behind Dylan Darling’s 30 points, handed the Pups their first GSL loss, 66-61. G-Prep played without starter Jamil Miller. Dave Nichols has the coverage. … Dave also put together a roundup of the other games. … If you want to attend one of next week’s spirit games in the Arena, the rules concerning testing have been loosened a bit. Greg Mason has the story.
Chiefs: Tyler Johnson returned to his hometown last night as the Chiefs retired his number and raised it to the rafters. Dan Thompson was in the Arena for the ceremony and has this story. Jesse Tinsley was also there and has photographs from the event. … Kevin Dudley stayed for the game, which Spokane lost 4-1 to Kelowna.
Seahawks: Clint Hurtt is expected to be named the Hawks new defensive coordinator. He has been on staff for a while, coaching the defensive line. But that’s not the only change Pete Carroll is making. Others are coming on board as well.
Sounders: Extensions were the order of the day, as three Sounders players reached agreement with the club.
Storm: The Storm brought back another key contributor.
Kraken: At midseason, Seattle hopes things will calm down the rest of the way.
Mariners: The minor league coaching staff has been finalized.
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• We may just be locked up with basketball from early this morning until the Gonzaga game ends tonight (we will have a TV Take after it is over). There are worse ways to spend a Saturday I guess. Until later …