As a fan, you normally follow your favorite team for years, so why is the Olympics so good at cheering on sports and athletes that we don't normally get to see?

Every 4 years, tens of millions of Americans join billions of their fellow residents around the globe in celebrating the amazing athletic achievements of the Summer Olympic Games.

Sports like swimming and track and field, which don't normally get much attention within the U.S. media, suddenly come to the fore. National teams compete in world championships yearly, but only on the Olympics do casual fans cheer on the red, white and blue national teams.

Why do the Olympics captivate us in a way that only the World Cup can? And why does our nationalistic enthusiasm extend to sports which are otherwise relatively unknown?

As a Sports scientist with a special interest in fandom, I even have found that Sports connections are fundamental to the sense of identity of tens of millions of individuals. For many Americans, belonging to the Packers, Lakers or Notre Dame is a very powerful identification figure, even before their career, religion or ethnic origin. They organize their lives across the dates of their favorite teams, decorate their bodies to point out their support and construct a community of friends amongst like-minded people.

Essentially, I even have argued, that is a strategy of storytellingduring which the triumphs and struggles of a team are linked to details from the lives of the fans.

Similar to a spiritual community, the fans also wish to see their values ​​reflected within the team and its stars. Appreciation of athletes who show like-mindedness for certain causes through volunteer work or charitable donations.

In each cases, these meaningful connections are created through long-standing bonds between athletes and fans – imagined relationships built over months, years and even many years.

Team USA

Unlike most team loyalties, the Olympics usually are not a secular or seasonal affair. They plunge into American life in intense two-week bursts every few years, amaze spectators as they watch athletes, most of whom they don't recognize. It's a really different sort of sports story. So why do spectators feel so connected to the players and their fellow fans?

To explain the effectiveness of sports membership, scientists often cite Political scientist Benedict Anderson Idea of ​​”imagined communities.”

Anderson hypothesized that individuals wish to feel connected to a bigger group, even when that group becomes so large that it consists mainly of individuals we have no idea personally – like a complete nation.

For Anderson, the rationale someone feels “American” has more to do with collective imagination and a desire for community than with the technicalities of citizenship or national laws. Despite the incredibly big selection of American experiences – not to say an increasingly divided political atmosphere – Americans still wish to imagine that we share a basic national identity. representing Team USA on the world stage.

By dressing athletes in flag-themed uniforms, the Olympic Games capture the eye of casual spectators, although many of the participants are relatively unknown. The flag parade on the opening ceremony prepares spectators for the experience and encourages them cheer on their country.

Patriotic Primetime

However, the eager for an “imagined community” will not be enough to clarify why the audience follows a young Canoe phenomenon paddling for gold or a Wrestler overcomes health crises to compete.

There is one other force Shaping the American Olympic Experience: NBC Sports’ media microscope.

NBC has exclusive US broadcasting rights for the Summer and Winter Games since 1988 and 2002and paid billions for the privilege of displaying the long-lasting Olympic rings under the network's rainbow peacock logo. In 2014 NBC agreed to pay the International Olympic Committee $7.65 billion for the rights to the Summer and Winter Games from 2021 to 2032.

With a lot money, NBC wants to maximise American attention for the games – and increase its own profits. In the past, the corporate has been quite successful in doing this. with a peak of 27 million viewers on average during prime time in 2016During the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, that number dropped to fifteen.5 million, the bottom ever at a Summer Olympics. digital views and streaming rose in Tokyo and in the course of the 2022 Beijing Games.

But NBC’s Olympic coverage offers will not be a neutral or unfiltered viewOn the one hand, the network tends to Ignore or downplay criticism the Games Management, the host country and the IOC.

And in the case of creating an “imagined community,” NBC takes the craft of storytelling very seriously. Their coverage includes the competitions themselves, with the obligatory commentators, infographics and pre- and post-game interviews. But in addition they rely heavily on broadcast Soft-Focus Profiles of American Athleteswith the main target predominantly on their families, overcoming adversity, and other stories which are prone to touch the viewer deeply.

These athletes turn out to be central characters within the viewers' understanding of the Olympic drama – characters whose sympathetic stories are rigorously crafted to entice fans to take a position time, attention and emotion in following them in the course of the Games. {Every viewer should be motivated to tune in: For example, will sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson her previous heartache and triumph on the Olympic stage?

Sporting excellence can surprise and amaze just as much in local parks or on sports fields as it might probably on television. But ultimately, it’s the sensation of connection to something larger – to athletes and spectators around the globe – that pulls so many individuals to the Olympic Games every 4 years.

The imaginary community that American fans feel they belong to once they cheer for Team USA is not any coincidence. The seductive dynamics of fandom, nationalism, and dramatic storytelling have been rigorously orchestrated to capture our attention, for higher or for worse.