Olympics: Television Ratings Crash -- July 24, 2021

Before we get started, breaking news: Bryson DeChambeau kicked off US Olympic golf team: tests positive for Covid-19. Jon Rahm tests positive twice in one month. Patrick Reed, despite shaky reputation since his college days, to join US team in Tokyo.

Now, back to regular programming, Or not.

There were a gazillion reasons to explain this.

But, without question, the "woke" and "anti-American" attitude by the US athletes probably was the over-riding reason folks chose not to tune in. The "anti-American" attitude was probably the tipping point.

It works like this:

• except for maybe Simone Biles there is no US star power (quick: name the dominant US male swimmer; it should be easier to name the dominant US female swimmer; quick: name the starting five on the US basketball team; quick: name the gymnast who turned her back on the US; was it a female gymnast? I forget)
• opening ceremony lacked the "wow" element and folks knew that even without tuning in;
• opening NBC coverage today: table tennis (ping pong); badminton; 3v3 basketball -- are you kidding me?
• tape delay; time zone differences:

So, folks in the US have all these reasons to not watch the Olympics, and then when asked why they are not watching? Most will simply say, "not interested," but if questioned a bit further, they will admit, they are turned off the by politicization of the entire affair; this is happening across the entire sports spectrum.

Folks turn to sports to get away from everyday issues including politics, but the state of affairs is such that politics will play a huge role in the year's Olympics. 

Russia is banned from the Olympics. I wonder how many folks know that. But in fact, the Russians are participating; they just can't carry the Russian flag, so they wave the "Russian Olympic Committee" flag. LOL. 

Back to television ratings: the NFL should be immune but we will see. Some suggest the NFL will suffer a similar fate as BLM basketball. 

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Vaccinations

The Washington Post is finally printing an inconvenient truth: the White House -- i.e., Dr Jill Biden and her husband -- are not requiring their staff to be vaccinated .

That speaks volumes.

The US athletes headed to Tokyo were not required by the US Olympic Committee to be vaccinated.

That speaks volumes. 

I learned today that some pediatricians are recommending that teenagers not get the vaccine even though the CDC highly recommends that. In other words, pediatricians, too, are winging it, not following the science. One wonders if those same pediatricians recommend that infants not get the polio vaccine?

That speaks volumes. 

On this one, I am aligned with Jim Cramer. But Cramer needs to point out that his own party leadership is not getting vaccinated. It would be interesting to get accurate count of the White House press corps vaccinated or not.