Leaving London 2012

After a quick vacation I took in the festivities in London 2012 and had a fantastic time. Despite the various boondoggles and controversies--of which there are many currently festering--the city is functioning well and the one event I was able to get into--beach volleyball--was absolutely fantastic, with an energetic crowd, stunning (temporary) venue and close matches.

Before boarding, a few quick thoughts:

- Golf is going to have to step it up to compete with the other sports for attention. Sadly, the current 72-hole stroke play format ensures it will get little attention and after watching the sensitive dynamics between teammates in beach volleyball and in other sports, we are completely blowing the Olympic opportunity by not showing the world that there is no more fascinating, intelligent, emotional, dramatic and beautifully awkward sport than golf when played with a teammate under Olympic pressure. So Tiger, since you helped influence this format, could you help influence its undoing now? Please?

- The empty seat fiasco, laid out beautifully by James Lawton in the Independent today, is as bad as you'd suspect. Tickets were difficult to get and for everyone here who tried and failed, or for visitors like me, it's insulting to see so many empty seats when you'd be willing to hand over good money to see an event. I'm less annoyed by the extensive dignitary seats going unfilled than I am by the large blocks in normal seating that went unsold. Most galling was turning on the BBC to see Caroline Wozniacki play at Wimbledon on a beautiful Saturday evening against a Great British athlete in front of maybe 1/3 the capacity of centre court, a session I tried to buy tickets for multiple times. Imagine how the residents who struck out must have felt.

-I will miss the papers terribly. The Guardian, Telegraph, Times, Independent and the tabloids are pulling out all the stops and while the coverage online is super and a must for your Olympic reading enjoyment, there is nothing like starting the day with a beautifully designed newspaper full of great writing and photography.

-The BBC here is remarkable. The coverage is extensive, easy to find and lacking many of the pomp that Americans seem to love and sports fans get annoyed with. But the jingoistic homerism really undoes their credibility, with the low point coming Sunday night by showing announcer reaction to a third place performance in women's swimming. NBC may be pro-American, but I don't think we'll ever see a replay of Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines rooting on someone to win a medal!

Cheers!

Comments

[fourputter]

Sorry Geoff. As a non-American living in the US it's easier for me to see than for you, naturally, but no jingoism I've witnessed has ever equalled that of American sportscasters. But it's to be expected; the American audience isn't really interested in the athletes of other countries except as cannon fodder to be beaten - and ratings are all that count. The same is true, if not quite so blatant, in Canada and Brazil, to complete the list of countries I've watched a few minutes of Olympics in.

But in the UK they have very few medal expectations, and those that there are are hopelessly over-hyped and pressurised - hence the nonsensical commentaries such as the one on the road cycling on Saturday, in which the British team, which was expected to do well even by independent opinion, apparently took a wrong turning and finished up in Newcastle, leaving the commentators (who were absolutely dreadful irrespective of nationality) at a loss as to who else was actually participating in the race!

[fourputter]

Geoff, like yourself, I'm always astonished when in Britain by the sheer quality and ebullience of the daily (and Sunday) newspapers. Why cannot we have journalism (and entertainment value) that the papers in the UK provide in the US (putting aside the criminal activities of some, of course)? Almost all journalism in the serious papers in the US is presented like a PhD thesis, and the tabloids are fifth-rate entertainment compared with their British counterparts.

And you mention only the nationals - there is a more than thriving non-London-centric press perhaps best epitomised by The Herald and the Hootsmon (Scotsman) in Scotland, but matched elsewhere throughout the country.

Geoff, your coverage of the golf (and sports) scene in your visit to Britain has been terrific and I'd like to both congratulate you on it and thank you for it.

Great job!

[j-mack]

And in defence of the comparative histrionics on the BBC around the win of Rebecca Adlington in the 400m freestyle swim, well, she's a bit of an Olympic legend around here, due to her performance at Beijing.

('Olympic legend' is a -- perhaps -- somewhat debased concept in the British Isles, admittedly, with the exception recently of Sir Steven Redgrave, and a few others; see, for instance, the antics of Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards in the Winter Olympics, even money to combust on pretty much any ski jump he attempted.)

Moreover, poor Rebecca was mercilessly slated in the UK tabloids and by some of the 'edgier' comedians (very brave, lads), for her looks; so while the broadsheet and redtop press in the UK is, as you've noted, Geoff, vibrant, it can also be unforgivable cruel. And thus, for her to win under those pressures, from a terrible lane, in a home Games where GB was, shall we say, not thriving, well, it was worth much of the praise!

[No Longer Used to be Former Stack & Tilt Convert]

Meanwhile at home, I listened to ESPN Radio for a half hour this morning and all they talked about was Jet's training camp. I then switch to ar local sports talk radio station and heard 5 minutes of Panther's training camp before I switched it off.

Sadly, very sadly, NFL training camp trumps the Olympics.

[Press Agent]

I agree wholeheartedly with what fourputter said in both posts.

[Ky Laffoon's Ghost]

Me, too. Except for the bit about the "serious newspapers." I have no doubt that we have serious papers in small-to-medium markets, most likely where the big chains in the thrall of market "analysts" have not yet descended. Hard to know what to think about our erstwhile "national" dailies, one of which should change its name to "Kaplan University Test Prep Daily." And then there is this PhD thesis business? I suppose so, if the more eminent doctoral students are Tom "Mustache of Understanding" Friedman and Judy "I Was Proved F*ckin' Right" Miller, who apparently received their degrees from Billy Joe Bob's Graduate School of Journamalism and Juke Joint.

[digsouth]

My anti-Olympic positions aside, I am happy that you all are happy! I was wondering about ''empty seats'': the one tennis match I watched part of was well attended, but one whole section was totally empty. I guess when I get time I'll rad up on it.

I also watched a few minutes of cycling, and the cars/motorcycles within feet of the bikers made me too nervous to continue. And it was on wet pavement to add to the danger.

[Eric]

As for the US not getting excited about 3rd place finishers, NBC had an in-studio sit-down with Brendan Hansen (bronze in swimming) just this morning.

Also, that wasn't an event Adlington was supposed to medal in at all. She even admits the 400 is a side event for her these days, so bronze is a good return. Wait for her 800m later this week.

[Chuck]

For Americans who live close enough to the Canadian border to pick up their broadcasts (in the days before online streaming), we learned a long time ago that the gold standard for unbiased, nonpartisan, intelligent and informative Olympics television coverage was CBC Sports.

[dsl]

@ Chuck - sadly, CBC lost the Olympic coverage. It's CTV now and that's a (very) bad thing.

I hear, though, that they'll be partnering up for the next games.

[Amen Coroner]

Just turn the volume all the way down folks...

[bob]

"we are completely blowing the Olympic opportunity by not showing the world that there is no more fascinating, intelligent, emotional, dramatic and beautifully awkward sport than golf when played with a teammate under Olympic pressure."

I love your blog Geoff but this statment is nauseating. you seem to think the the olympics have he appeal of some sort of Ryder/Presidents Cup squared. I think that those formats rely on twelve players per side, with no one going home--everybody plays at the end. The Olympics will be just line the Omega World Cup, where most of these odd ball formats have been tried with two guys.

Part of the team concept is getting guys who want to play together. Did you watch Tiger with Phil at Oakland Hills? you got the awkward part right about that one.

I know you really want this--but your match play/mixed team/losers bracket plays a scramble to get back into the medal bracket format is too clever by half. Match play, unless you get really lucky and get names in the final, will KILL golf in the olympics, not get people to watch it.

If you want to grow golf and generate buzz in the olympics, you need to think of ways to get more names in at the end--because all the IOC will care bout during the review after 2020 will be the ratings--i.e. did NON golfers tune in to watch.

[walkie talkie banks]

we get so excited cos we win so little!!
Plus we'd failed to win any medals on day 1 when the cycling was suposed to be a case of who's going to be second....

[chas3983]

Empty seats I believe McDonald's, Coca Cola and other corporate sponsors have been shown to be to blame for these along with tickets given to various countries Olympic comities not using their allocation.

[John Morris]

They should use the Modified Stableford Scoring system for the Olympics its a format that makes the pros fire at pins. I think the Reno Tahoe tournament is going to it this year. Highest points total wins. The pros must try for birdies and better, par won't hack it. Lets make the game exciting. They did it for cricket with restricted "overs' matches as well as 3 & 5 day matches and it works. People come out in droves all over in a day. Golf must do something instead of the 4 day stroke play format. These days I record the last two hours on a Sunday afternoon and get perhaps an hour and twenty minutes golf by ff through the commercials, and I am not alone in this. PGA Tour is stuck in a stroke play rut and golf audiences are declining
John

[rb]

KLG...don't forget Maureen "Don't Call Me Dowdy Cause I Ain't No Journalistic Slut" Dowd.

[Ghillie]

As golf in the Olympics may introduce non-golf people to the game, using Stableford, which is a novelty format to vary the pampered millionaires' year is a poor idea -- at the very least people new to golf should come away with the idea that the idea is to achieve the LOWEST score, not the highest.

Otherwise, as I think the whole idea is preposterous, it barely matters.