Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

A view by yours truly, in regards to NBC’s broadcasting style

The American Athlete is perfect and always deserves a gold medal.

Sometimes mistakes are made, and the American athlete loses said gold, not because he or she is not the best, but by mistake, of course, never because a competitor was better. The only sports worth broadcasting are the ones in which the American Athletes compete. The others do not exist.

And when an American athlete does not win, the cameras respectfully cut away, because such things are not meant for public consumption. The commentators immediately search for a noble explanation: altitude, humidity, an unfair breeze, a fluttering leaf, a rogue muscle fiber, or the psychological burden of representing the greatest nation on Earth. The possibility that another athlete simply performed better is treated like a conspiracy theory.

When NBC starts telling the life story of an American athlete, from grandparents to high school, and repeats their name ten times a minute, you know for sure they’re the favorite. At that point, the odds feel like 98% in their favor. The pressure triples. Suddenly, the dreams of a nation are on their shoulders.

When an American athlete does win, however, the world must pause. The anthem plays. The flag waves in slow motion, tears are shed, with a close-up of the always trembling lower lip of the winner, who overcame unimaginable adversity such as a sprained toe in 2014, or a coach who once said “focus more” and took away his “everybody deserves a medal” medal. The thousands of hours of practice and gallons of sweat are well too common. The sensational sells.

Other nations’ athletes are allowed brief appearances, usually as background scenery or as convenient narrative devices. They exist to push the American hero to greatness, like supporting characters in a blockbuster movie or a Charlie Brown strip. Their biographies are summarized in one sentence, usually involving a charming hardship, before the broadcast returns to the important matter: the American Athlete.

If an athlete from another country breaks an Olympic record, the commentators acknowledge it, politely, then immediately pivot to whether an American once held that record, came close to holding it, could have held it, or might hold it again in the future, perhaps in a hypothetical universe where wind, rain, sleet, snow, or dark of night cooperate.

Should an American athlete fall, the broadcast shifts into a national moment of collective healing. Analysts gather around a digital touchscreen to diagram the tragedy from multiple angles, explaining how physics, fate, or an uncooperative bump conspired against the rightful champion. Viewers are encouraged to send supportive messages using a hashtag that trends for seven minutes before being replaced by a new montage about resilience.

All this is because, in the world of NBC sports, The Olympics are not about competition. They are about destiny. And destiny, as everyone knows, wears red, white, and blue.

This is how you keep the American TV consumer glued to the screen and your FCC license active. Unless you broadcast a halftime show with Bad Bunny, who happens to sing in Spanish (never mind that he is a Puerto Rican who happens to live in Hollywood), in which case the more northern American TV consumer becomes a different species entirely, and the FCC suddenly begins to pay attention.

I understand that it’s the same with every major network that broadcasts in a country with a large number of Olympians. The “advantage” of being from a small country, with fewer athletes, is that they broadcast all sports. Yay! Yay?