I’ll make the unpopular statement: the Olympics isn’t very meaningful to me. I’ve watched less and less in general over the years and I’m not sure I’ll watch much of the basketball tournament. Just hope no one gets hurt and they are able to rest, heal, and do some summer work.
I don’t think that statement is all that unpopular among fans, NG…that said I’m the opposite, I’ve always loved the Olympics and the concept of global competition and representing your country, especially in basketball. I love the FIFA World Cup for the same reason.
I do think I’m out of step with other Americans in enjoying this though, and that your opinion is actually the popular, majority one - because we tend to play homegrown sports here in our country that nobody or few other countries play, and we’re clearly the best at them as a result, the best competitions are local or domestic, rather than international. Even basketball, which many other countries play, the NBA is clearly the highest quality competition, even if these days many of the best players in the NBA (Giannis, Luka, Shai, Jokic) are international.
While in other countries the main team sports they play tend to be ones that lots of other countries play, like soccer or rugby or cricket, and so their pinnacle of competition is international.
So basketball is probably the only other sport that has that truly international feel to it (baseball is America and East Asia centric, hockey is North and East Europe centric) where I can watch players from my favorite sport come together on a superteam and play against the rest of the world representing the American flag and for that reason I love it. I understand why people would think it’s a waste of time though