Oh yeah, the Olympics used to be for amateurs
by Mark Jurgena
Back in my day…
Well, that probably wasn’t the best way to begin an article because most of the 35 and younger crowd just stopped reading, but anyway.
Back in my day the Olympics were only for amateur athletes.
Well except for the communist countries who made athletics their job in that kind of society. They were paid by the government for playing sports. And everyone knew it.
In the USA, we had the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. (and still do). I always wondered if the athletes were provided room and board when training there and if that counted as pay? Hmmm.
Then the 1992 U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team with Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Ervin “Magic” Johnson and many other Hall of Famers showed up to annihilate everyone at the Barcelona, Spain games and professionalism was on for everybody!
And I don’t hear anyone complaining about it.
They make the Olympics better.
I watched NBC’s Mike Tirico discuss the pros in the Olympics and it got me thinking about both the past and present games.
My Olympic television journey began when I was six years old in 1976 at the Innsbruck Winter Games in Austria and the Summer Games in Montreal, Canada when everyone tuned in to watch U.S. amateurs Dorothy Hamill, Bruce Jenner and Romania’s Nadia Comenici rule the athletic world.
The U.S. athletes were not paid (that we know of) while Comenici was from an Eastern-bloc (communist) country. She probably wasn’t paid because she was only 14. She won three golds and five total medals in gymnastics!
That year the USA climbed back to the top of the heap in men’s basketball behind college players Quinn Buckner and Adrian Dantley. Both would go to the Basketball Hall of Fame but they were still in college way before the transfer portal and NIL era.
Who remembers watching the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team beat the Soviet Union on live TV?
Jim Craig, Mike Eruzione and a bunch of other college kids beat the dominant professionals from Russia in the Olympic SEMIFINALS (they had to beat Finland two days later to win gold).
That 1980 Miracle on Ice team was the exception to this idea about professionals enhancing the Olympics or was it?
The game was not shown on live TV because it started at 4 p.m. Central time. It was thought no one would watch it so it was moved to part of the prime time package on tape delay.
ABC had the broadcast rights to the Olympics back then (anyone remember Jim McKay?) and they showed a grand total of 53.25 hours of action.
I think I watched more than that last week on Thursday alone!
This year NBC is devoting 7,000 HOURS to Olympic coverage both live and tape-delayed.
But back to hockey.
Fast forward to the present time period, who remembers who won the 2022 ice hockey gold medal game?
Exactly.
No one remembers because the NHL couldn’t work out an agreement to participate so the professionals didn’t play.
I’ll bet viewership goes up in 2026 when the NHL players return to the Olympics!
It matters when the best in the world participate regardless of how much or who pays them.
This year saw Novak Djokovic and Scottie Scheffler win gold in their sports.
Djokovic is considered perhaps the best tennis player ever. The Serbian has won 23 grand slam championships in his career but never a gold medal, until last Sunday.
When he won the title he fell to his knees and ended up in tears after winning the title that eluded him.
People across the globe tuned in for that.
Would it have been as dramatic or had that big of an audience if amateurs were playing in the tennis final?
As for the American Scheffler, on the course, he is the world number one ranked golfer and took home the Olympic title thanks to shooting a 29 over the final nine holes to tie the course record of 62 to win Olympic gold.
Think millions and millions would tune in for a non-professional?
We also know the U.S. women’s soccer team gets appearance fees and bonuses for winning from the U.S. Soccer Federation. They get huge ratings!
The NBA and WNBA players are obviously professionals in basketball.
Would you really want to trade in Steph Curry burying four crazy three-pointers late in the game to win the gold medal for NIL college players?
But the real question is could these professionals in the Olympics expand in the future?
Well with the 2028 Olympics coming to Los Angeles, baseball returns to the Olympics and many big leaguers are all about playing in it. Will MLB agree?
Perhaps more intriguing will be flag football as a gold medal sport in L.A.
Might we see NFL quarterbacks and wide receivers play in the Olympics?
I can tell you this, back in my day if Fran Tarkenton (Go Vikings!) and Roger Staubach were throwing to Lynn Swann, Mel Gray and Drew Pearson as they took on athletes from communist countries in flag football that would’ve been must-see TV.
