my unpopular opinion is that they are a waste of time and effort.
LA’s transit plans are all aiming for a 2028 Olympics launch. If it was not for that, I doubt any of these projects could get the funding in time.
And people should be fucking angry about it instead of being happy that it will get done for tourists instead of the residents, just like the cleanup of the Seine that should have been done decades ago.
The general concept, or the Olympics brand specifically?
The sports and competition are not. Will my kids ever be Olympic athletes? Probably not. But there’s been a hell of a lot of pretending going on at my house the past month, and I like that.
Is moving the Olympics ever 4 years and building bigger, more elaborate facilities purely as a dick measuring contest a waste of time and effort? Absolutely, 100%.
They should just pick a location and stick to it. Same with the World Cup.
Sex trafficers would lose major revenue source!
I’d agree except that the possibility remains to just build a permanent site to host both the summer and winter games, removing like 99% of the negatives that it actually causes.
You still get a ridiculous amount of emissions over two weeks to bring all the tourists there.
Definitely unpopular.
However, I mostly agree with you.
I still like the idea of the Olympics in the way it’s marketed to be, a time of peaceful athletic competition and communication between nations and peoples.
And, I can’t lie, it is one of the few times that individual sports that I’m more into watching ever get air time at all. Like, you don’t see judo, or archery, or shooting, or even wrestling on regular tv often at all, even back when I still had cable. Team sports, you can see all damn day, all times of the year, but individual sports don’t usually have the same kind of industry built around them.
Which, that’s part of the problem, the way some sports turn into a money making machine rather than a genuine competition for sport’s sake.
But, yeah, I get tired of the masturbatory commentary, the circle jerk nature of opening ceremonies, the back room bullshit of how it’s all arranged and located. It’s a shit ton of resources better allocated to actually making things better instead of entertaining the masses.
I’m pretty sure people uninterested in the things that interest you would say the same thing.
I believe there is a lot of positive reasons to have the Olympics. It’s a symbol of peace. Nations joining together in the spirit of competition to send their best athletes to compete. Culture is shared. Cities hosting it put their best foot forward. Everyone comes together.
As far as the negatives. The amount of money and work required to host is getting out of hand. They should seriously pair back the amount of competitions. I just freaking watched break dancing. Seriously? Dressage? Should we just cut to the chase and award medals to the horses? Maybe we stick to athletic human sports and drop some of the frivolity, or artistic endeavors where judges are required to decide style points when a stopwatch or a tape measure should do. The sheer amount of resources required to support this bloating competition has gotten out of hand.
Have ever tried riding a horse? Dressage is not just the horse, it’s exhausting for the rider as well.
It’s a horrible and cruel sport full of animal cruelty so no sympathy if they get a bit tired
Threating animals like shit is pretty exhausting
The fact that the Olympics committee doesn’t answer to anyone and it’s rolling in cash is reason enough to cancel them.
Well now… break dancing was actually pretty fun to watch, in my opinion. Perfect balance between rhythmic gymnastics and dance.
Nations joining together in the spirit of the rich lording it over everyone else, I think you mean? Or the spirit of sport-washing dictatorships, maybe?
They would be fine, you just have to choose a permanent location. Currently, we build the required stuff almost every time from the ground up and a lot of it isn’t used afterwards.
Same opinion on Para-Olympics?
I love the idea of the Olympics and would like to see a version that wasn’t an environmental, economic, and humanitarian trash fire.
Just like Superbowl.
My similar opinion is that Americans could have Universal healthcare for a decade if they gave up the money they spend on football for just one year. NFL. College ball, etc.
We could have universal healthcare if we take the money the us government already spends and cut out the middleman. In fact we would save money that doesn’t even include what we spend already. Insurance is a scam and the fact healthcare and insurance became a for profit industry in 1970s…says a whole lot
Didnt the CBO say we’d save like 5 trillion dollars over 10-20 years if we did that filthy socialist thing of giving Americans
universal healthcare“Medicaid for all”
Ya know, they could keep the football if they gave up the “destabilising countries and murdering brown people” thing
See!? Even in a theoretical post you’re not willing to give up football and came up with another thing to point your finger at
They could have all of that if they gave up even one billionaire. And nothing of value would be lost.
they could have even more money to murder innocent people if they just fixed their stupid system. they currently pay more per person on healthcare than countries with a functioning healthcare system.
wasting time on something you enjoy is not actually wasted time. Besides, so many people get positivity from watching etc
Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted. - John Lennon
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Right!? Can we not yuck other people’s yum please?
I wonder what the response would be if the OPs unpopular opinion had been on video games and esports instead? For the record, I enjoy video games.
You don’t need to bankrupt entire cities to build esports arenas so esports is better.
On a planet as diverse as ours, there should be plenty of room for both regular sports and e-sports.
There is plenty of room. But the Olympics insist on changing city every 4 years and building a brand new stadium and village every time. It’s wasteful.
There are many reasons to oppose the Olympics, but that the athletes are wasting their time and effort is not one of them
Upvoted because this is definitely an unpopular opinion
