my unpopular opinion is that they are a waste of time and effort.
I’m pretty sure people uninterested in the things that interest you would say the same thing.
wasting time on something you enjoy is not actually wasted time. Besides, so many people get positivity from watching etc
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.
Honestly, not to be mean or anything, BUT, this sorta reeks of “I don’t like it so nobody else should.”
This is a type of mentality that I believe to be highly negative and frankly kinda toxic. Your welcome to your opinion, but I really don’t think the many many hours, days, weeks, months, and years of effort, training and planning that goes into those who both run and participate in the Olympics is a waste of time and effort.
Also we live in a world that you can just block or ignore anything you don’t particularly care for.
They all have their world championships already so they can already compete there (and I mean, that’s exactly what a multitude of sports do in fact, hell, climbers weren’t that happy about how the sport was added to the Olympics and some high ranking competitors just didn’t bother even trying to go).
The environmental and socioeconomic impact of the Olympics make them something we really should consider at least making permanently held in a specific location.
The Olympics is a time to celebrate athletes in sports we don’t follow every day.
I don’t watch baseball, soccer, basketball, etc at the Olympics because they all get plenty of air time.
In the last week I watched water polo, gymnastics, breakdancing, volleyball, skateboarding, and more.
There’s an event (modern pentathlon) that consists of pistol shooting, fencing, Horsemanship, running, and swimming. That’s a fascinating mix of disciplines and there are people who train for decades to be good at it, and I think it’s wonderful that they get their time in the spotlight every few years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Modern_Pentathlon_Championships
Again, just considering the environmental and socioeconomic impact of the Olympics should be enough to convince everyone that we need to stop hosting them or that we should host them in a fixed location with only the athletes going.
Homeless people get kicked out of cities and no one cares what happens to them. Billions in public funds are spent without a return on investment, very often to buy infrastructure that is then left to rot. The impact on the environment is incredibly high (this year’s Olympics are evaluated to have released 1.5m tons of CO2 pretty much evenly split between traveling, construction and game operations).
If you think about all of that you then realize that the Olympics literally kill people and it’s just another thing we’re spending public funds on to enrich private corporations at the expense of the public’s well-being.
We’re not responsible enough to host that kind of events responsibly.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19406940.2023.2271487#abstract
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/economics-hosting-olympic-games
https://apnews.com/article/olympics-2024-explainer-086d71dfa93128a2c5a302cb47ec3524
Hmm, an interesting take. The Olympics, being an international multinational event, being in a singular location could cause political tension between countries. It would have to be on neutral land for such a thing to work. Maybe some of that unclaimed land In Africa?
Edit: messed up the formatting by accident.
That would mean a private company becoming the owner of land that isn’t part of a country, would be kind of weird wouldn’t it?
They’re already registered in Switzerland so let them deal with it, countries should refuse to host them considering the cost and the fact that there’s no return on investment in the end.
Honestly, not to be mean or anything, BUT, this sorta reeks of “I don’t like it so nobody else should.”
As someone who had to learn how to avoid these feelings after growing up with parents who felt this way about everything, OP is clearly just salty that people like something they don’t like.
There are legitimate problems with the Olympics, and the scale of the spectacle, international attention and amount of people and money involved really lends itself to the worst of modern humanity. But that doesn’t mean nobody can enjoy them, that just means that the world needs to push to improve the Olympics further
“…so nobody else should”
I don’t think OP ever said that, nor did they imply it. I interpret OP’s unpopular opinion as nothing more than “it’s not for me”.
But I guess there is some room for ambiguity.
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.
While I certainly believe many sports events are really just a waste of money, Olympics is probably not.
Not only does it serve as a way to promote sports worldwide, boosting public health and inspiring people, it also is a remarkable feat of international cooperation, contributing to the relative peace and harmony.
Now, all those football leagues and stuff should really vanish. They cost way more than their benefit could ever be.
contributing to the relative peace and harmony.
There’s no way you’re talking this way about the Fucking Olympics…
remarkable feat of international cooperation
But it shouldn’t be political. Get rid of the countries endorsement of said athletes, so that both israeli and russian athletes can compete, instead of deciding which one depending on political affiliation.
Of course that would turn the olympics into a purely individualistic endeavour¹, and funding for training athletes would likely fall on private enterprise² who would likely only fund already good budding athletes³ instead of funding schools and communities in general.
¹ - read: “Go Bell!” instead of “Go GB!”
² - read: replace country badges with BMW logos
³ - read: rich kids from good homes
So, in conclusion: *shrug emoji*
Russian athletes not being able to compete has nothing at all to do with constant doping scandals and is purely political?
LOL give me a fucking break
