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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Well, now that we've done a lot of serious stuff on climate and on public education in New York City, let's have a little fun and talk about the 2024 Olympics that just ended and if this year's Summer Olympics were more fun or interesting to you than other recent ones. Viewership for the Olympics had been declining. Did anything about these games bring anything of a revival? We'll talk about whether that was true generally, and you can tell us if that was true for you. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

If you missed it, Sunday marked the end of a raucous two weeks in Paris. The athletes have gone home. Well, not Kevin Durant. We're told he's lounging on a yacht in Saint-Tropez with an Olympic gold medal. For the most part, the fun is over, and all that's left is to reminisce about the incredible athletic feats and some of the controversies we witnessed over the course of the games. Joining us now to recap the Paris Olympics is none other than Will Leitch, contributing editor at New York Magazine, columnist at MLB.com, and founding editor of the sports news site Deadspin. Hey, Will. Welcome back to WNYC.

Will Leitch: Of course. Pleasure as always. I'm sorry I'm not in Paris lounging with Kevin Durant, but this is an excellent second place to be.

Brian Lehrer: You need more access.

[laughter]

Will Leitch: I know. Sorry, sorry. He didn't get my letters, apparently.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Listeners, now that the games have ended, what would be on your highlight reel of the 2024 Olympics in Paris? 212-433-WNYC. Did a specific Olympian catch your heart? Was there a particular niche sport that had you hooked? Want to talk about your favorite Snoop Dogg moment or how your home country performed if you're not from the US? Did you watch more in general this year, or was there anything maybe even that you didn't like? That's fair game too. Call us or text us. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Well, let's start with Paris itself. What did you think of it as a host city for the Olympics?

Will Leitch: I have a long-time theory that the Olympics should be hosted by cities that you would otherwise visit even if the Olympics were not there. I think Paris clearly qualifies in that. Paris is a place-- obviously, it's a beautiful place. One of the things I thought was really fun, you'd watch these events, and every once in a while, you'd almost catch an athlete looking up being like, "Wow, that's the Eiffel Tower right there." There really was such [unintelligible 00:02:49]. The beach volleyball was in the wake of the Eiffel Tower. Breaking was held where Marie Antoinette was beheaded.

Brian Lehrer: Place de la Concorde.

Will Leitch: Yes, that feels like human progress to me, actually, to go from that to breakdancing competition in the Olympics. One thing that I think just among many things that really helped this Olympics was just the simple fact that it was in Paris. I think you could sense, particularly after Tokyo, which was in 2021, it had been delayed, and it was a very buttoned-up Olympics.

Both athletes and media had that we were isolated in the rooms, there were no fans. Here, the whole thing just felt opened up. The fans seemed to be having fun. The athletes seemed to be having fun. It really felt like the first true, real Summer Olympics we've had in nearly a decade. To have it in Paris, I think, opened up and made it very exciting for a lot of people.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Another scenic set of events, swimming in the Seine, although I call it the fecal 400. A number of people got sick afterwards. Right?

Will Leitch: A few people got sick, though. Ultimately, I think they were more worried about that. Like a lot of things, one of the great things about the Olympics is, when you write about the Olympics for the first two weeks before the Olympics starts, everything is a major concern. The building's not going to be ready, the hotels aren't ready, there's fecal matter in the Seine, and all of these things. Once the games get going, a lot of these things just get swept away, so to speak.

They were able to finish most of the events there. They had swimming events there. The triathlon was there. Generally speaking, a lot of that tended to be more of a worry. To be fair, quite an understandable worry before they actually started doing anything. I do think that once they got through the mayor swimming in to show that it was safe beforehand, most of the athletes went ahead and went through with it. It seemed to be fine. It didn't seem to be the major issues.

Most of the things, these so-called controversies that happened with the Olympics, tended to happen outside the Olympics themselves, people putting stuff on the Olympics rather than anything necessarily within Paris itself.

Brian Lehrer: Maria in Morris Plains, you're on WNYC. Hi, Maria.

Maria: Hey, Brian. Love your show and love this segment. I was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. Shout out to 181st Street in Tremont. Seeing breakdancing grow from hip hop and the street, and now, full circle, it's on the Olympic stage, and to see these women and men, it is amazing. Really, really amazing and a true distraction to what's going on politically. I loved it 100%, all of it.

Brian Lehrer: Maria, thank you very much. Uh-oh, here's somebody who didn't like the breaking events. Renee in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Renee.

Renee: Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I had very high expectations, thinking that it was going to be a true battle, but the more I learned about how these judges were picked and how they created these categories that has absolutely nothing to do with breaking, it just confirmed to me that it was major appropriation, major, major takeover of something that's from the street. It's supposed to be a battle.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. Layers and layers of things we could talk about regarding the breaking competition as an Olympic event. Renee talks about it as cultural appropriation. I don't know if you reported on it in that way or if other people have been talking about that.

Will Leitch: One thing that was interesting about this, one of the big viral sensations, there were very many viral sensations from this Olympics, whether it was the Turkish shooter who just looked very casual and hanging out or some of the pictures they took from the surfing event. One of the big viral sensations was actually Raygun, who is the woman that-- the 36-year-old professor from Australia who had won from the Oceania competition. She finished last. She was not a serious competitor.

I think it actually hurt the breaking event because when you watch the clips from the event, she was, fair to say, not one of the top competitors. I think it actually hurt the event a little because this is an experimental event. The Summer Olympics does this every year. Baseball was this a few years ago. You see events that get in for one year and we'll see if they last. There's actually been a lot of reporting about how, in a lot of ways, as much as-- She did a little kangaroo dance, and I think she did the sprinkler at one point, which was sort of funny to see, and it was a big takeaway from the event.

I think a lot of the competitors that take it very seriously were actually quite frustrated that she was the takeaway from the event because it made the event and the competitors and the work that they put into this feel more like a joke than the seriousness of the time they put into it for. This is a provisional event. It might not return for four years in Los Angeles and then four years after that, the Olympics in Australia. I think in a lot of ways people actually think that hurt a little bit as funny as it was to watch that.

The top-shelf competitors in that are incredibly skilled and have dedicated much of their lives to it. She was kind of a hobbyist that snuck in through a loophole. She finished last in the competition, and I think it may have actually hurt the event in the long term.

Brian Lehrer: Incredibly skilled and beautiful and inspiring to watch. I enjoyed watching the breaking, but I couldn't figure out, just because I didn't take the time to learn it, how they score it. I thought of it as perhaps in a parallel with some of the ice skating, sort of ice dancing events at the Winter Olympics. It's different from like, "Who won the race," because these are artistic, as well as, "Did you stick the landing," technical kinds of judging that have to go on here. How do you score breakdancing or breaking, as we're supposed to call it?

Will Leitch: Oh, you're going to need a full-time reporter of that event to be able to fully explain that. Actually, I would argue that's actually one of the most fun things of the Olympics. To me, the large part of the appeal of the Olympics is for two weeks, we get truly obsessed with these sports. I watched so much fencing, and I still don't exactly know how you get a point in fencing. All these things where you're really obsessed with--

One of my favorite highlights of the whole Olympics was when the American team won a bronze medal in rugby on a last-second incredible run that I think I understand why it's scored. To me, that's the fun. You get so obsessed with the events, and then they go away and you don't really think about them for four years. Then you come back and you get very invested in them. That, to me, is one of the joys of the Olympics. It really is the ultimate casual sports fan event.

I don't mean that as an insult at all. I think that that's why they're so fun to get into because you could totally-- In a lot of ways, they can feel a little bit like the reality television of sport and the idea that you get deeply invested in all these little micro stories and all these things. Then there's a new cast of characters that comes tomorrow, and you get to get really invested in their stories. Then you forget about it for four years until a new season starts.

It's funny you mentioned the judging things. One of the things I really found amusing from watching all of these games, if there's one thing that transcends sports or cultures or genders or language, whether I understood the sport, whether I didn't understand the sport, the one thing that connects them all, they're always angry at the refs. [laughter] No matter what happens, no matter what the sport, everybody is angry at the ref. It feels like we found the one thing globally that bonds us as a people is that the refs are out to get us. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: That ref.

Will Leitch: In fencing, I didn't really understand the rules of. They were still really angry at the refs. I got angry too. I was like, "Yes, that was a bad scoring of whatever that scoring decision was." That's another fun part of the Olympics, I think.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, that ref from Argentina, that ref from the Netherlands, that ref from Canada.

Will Leitch: Exactly. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Smita in Bridgewater, you're on WNYC. Hi, Smita.

Smita: Hi, Brian. I'm a big fan, so I'm so glad to be on your show. I just wanted to say that I'm originally from India, and now we are US citizens. It was a great opportunity and an inspiration for my kids to see, not just India make it to the medal tally, but also, to see US right on top. My little one is just eight, and he said that, "Hey, you know what?" I think he just made it to the swim team and he was like, "Maybe I can try for Junior Olympics one of these days."

Brian Lehrer: That's awesome.

Smita: I think the entire Olympics this year in Paris was great. It started with the gymnastics team, who did wonderfully well, and then to see the swimmers and the athletes do so well, I think was an inspiration, not just for us, but for our kids as well.

Brian Lehrer: Smita, thank you. Call us again. Stefano in Ossining, you're on WNYC. Hi, Stefano.

Stefano: Hi, Brian. I just want to make a comment about Snoop Dogg, the presence of Snoop Dogg, which I personally enjoyed very much. I think it was a great addition to the team. He seemed to be part of the team in a way, but then yesterday, I heard from a couple of people that he was paid to do that, and he was paid a lot of money on top of that. That was a little bit of a disappointment.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, yes. Well, Stefano, thank you very much. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think he was an NBC employee as part of the coverage of the games. Will, you want to talk about that from a media perspective?

Will Leitch: Yes. I actually would say, firstly, he was paid, but I think there's a lot of people like Kevin Hart and Jimmy Fallon who were also paid to be there. I don't think anyone necessarily denies that. I would say one of the fun things about Snoop Dogg, I think spoke to something that was particularly better about these Olympics, the fun that was exuded throughout these Olympics. Bob Costas is a wonderful broadcaster, and I will not cast any dispersions on Bob Costas, but I certainly think that he's become well known to cover the Olympics. He's not done the last two.

I think there's a certain seriousness, even a self-seriousness that crept into Olympic coverage over the years. The idea that these are the serious games and this is global sport. It was fun to see Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg out there wearing equestrian helmets. I think there's a couple of reasons that the ratings were up this year really high. One of them is that kind of fun idea. One of them is, frankly, how much, finally, NBC seems to have figured out how to broadcast these Olympics.

They've had all of these failed experiments of Triplecast and the Olympic Channel in the past. It turned out that Peacock was a perfect way to do it. There was the Gold Zone channel where you could flip back and they would flip back and forth for you between all the events. I really think the primary reason that all of this works, it felt like it was just a-- The Olympics at a certain level, they're very serious, and these athletes are doing great things, but on the whole, there are sports that we don't watch the rest of the time. We're all being introduced to them, invested them, and then moving on from them.

I think covering the Olympics in that way, rather than, "What does this global summit mean in this age in this tumultuous time that we live in?" I think that idea of allowing it to relax, opening it up, having people be like, "Hey, there's Snoop Dogg talking about it, and we're having fun with all this stuff," having more access to the athletes themselves. You saw a lot of social media packages that they were promoting.

I think it was less more of that soft focus, "Here's what this athlete has overcome to get to this point," and more, "I'm having fun being one of the greatest athletes in the world at this sport that I've dedicated my life to," and the enjoyment of that, rather than the portentousness and the seriousness of the Olympic five rings and all the Olympic ideal, I think really helped. I think Snoop Dogg was good at that but also a representative of that. The idea that it was just kind of relaxed games where you could enjoy it, I think that really, really helped across the board.

Brian Lehrer: I'm glad to hear you say that as an expert who covers this because it was my feeling as someone who watched a fair amount of the Olympics on regular NBC Channel 4 New York, that there was more joy and the whole thing was a more uplifting experience. I wonder if part of that, part of NBC's success in being able to communicate that or even create that as a television vibe was because of the time of day. Paris is, what, 6 hours ahead of New York, so the events had already taken place, but they didn't take place like 14 hours ago.

They were able to package for the prime-time Olympics coverage that started at 8:00 PM the perfect mix of the highlights from different events and enough to give you a little bit of the arc of the narrative but also to keep going back and forth between highlight moment and highlight moment from one sport or another. I thought that the time shift from Paris to New York at least worked very well for NBC to create a really good show.

Will Leitch: Yes, it's certainly an advantage over Tokyo in 2021.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, exactly.

Will Leitch: In eight years. I think Australia is also going to have a little bit of an issue with this. Los Angeles in four years may be ideal, but I think that helps too, though, because now, because of Peacock, all those events that you watched in prime time, those of us that-- I work at home, and so I was able to watch those events live. Remember, there was a time, if you remember, about 812 years ago, there was a massive controversy with The New York Times because they would send out news alerts to alert who had won certain events that people did not want to know. [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: I got a lot of spoiler notifications this year.

Will Leitch: I think people are less upset about that anymore because it feels like we're in a much more-- like the time where you sit down, you watch it. I think a lot of people did watch it that way. They'll watch from 8:00 to 11:00, the prime time sort of thing. It does feel like we're much more of a pu pu platter, sort of choose-your-own-adventure streaming world now. I think that, certainly, people were able to watch these things.

One of the things I loved about watching Peacock is I could watch an event, get really excited about it, and then just go to another channel and watch another event that had started at the same time as the previous event from the beginning as if I was watching it all in real-time. For a long time, NBC's had a hard time figuring out how to direct the Olympics. One of the things that's really helped them this year, we get to direct it now. In a lot of ways, the consumer gets to pick and choose when and what they want to watch at their own convenience. The Olympics has so many options, it really helps.

Brian Lehrer: I knew everything that Simone Biles did before I saw it. I personally didn't care, but maybe other people do. You're saying maybe people don't care as much as they used to. Here's a text from a listener on the coverage. It says on Peacock, "Does the guest have thoughts on Peacock as a screening service?" This listener writes, "Another fail for Peacock's Olympic streaming. You can still see all highlights and final events from other sports, but all the breaking events were taken down. I did not even get to watch all the events." I don't know if you agree with any of that.

Will Leitch: I've said it wasn't exactly my experience, but I do know Peacock is certainly-- I would say before the Olympics, I would not classify Peacock as one of my most essential streaming platforms, so I think this has been a victory for NBC in that regard. I will say that, to me, the best part of Peacock was the Gold Zone channel. The Gold Zone channel was basically a takeoff from the NFL package. There's the NFL RedZone channel, where every time a team is within the 20-yard line, they cut to that game.

My son, for example, his favorite team in the NFL is the RedZone channel because he can just sit and watch. He just watches in excitement. It basically gets rid of all the boring parts and you just cut to when someone's about to score or something dramatic's happening. Not only did the Olympics model that with the Gold Zone channel, they actually took some of the broadcasters from the NFL channel and actually brought them over here because they knew what it was like to cut back and forth between the games. It actually allowed you to have nonstop excitement.

It made me want to have one in my life where just the boring parts of my life were just cut out and we just-- "Oh, Will's about to win a gold medal and something in his day," and just cut straight to that. I really think the Gold Zone channel was a great innovation. I think it will probably be a part of Olympic coverage moving forward.

Brian Lehrer: A few more calls before we run out of time. Debriefing the Olympics with Will Leitch, contributing editor at New York Magazine, columnist at MLB.com, founding editor of Deadspin. Jesse in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jesse.

Jesse: Hi. My family, we're Chinese American, and my aunt was really invested in the race between US and China for most gold medals because something I've noticed in a lot of Olympics coverage over the past couple of Olympics is that a lot of US outlets, they rank gold medal counts by-- oh, not gold medal counts, medal counts by total medals won. A lot of the international coverage, including the IOC itself, ranks it by golds won first over total medals. That was something I always had to keep in mind.

Also, the memes coming out of the shooting competitions, they were amazing. There was a big convention in Japan recently where somebody's already done cosplay of the Turkish shooter who won the silver medal. They call him the free-to-play ojichan over there. Ojichan, meaning uncle, and free-to-play, as in he doesn't have to wear any cosmetics. The women's basketball gold medal match where the US won by a point, that was so exciting. It pulled the US into the tie with China over the gold medal race. Those were my highlights.

Brian Lehrer: Jesse, that's a lot. Thank you. Good stuff. Another basketball watcher, but the other gender. Amy in Princeton Junction, you're on WNYC. Hi, Amy.

Amy: Hi. Good morning. Happy to speak with you. I enjoyed the Olympics thoroughly. I watched an array of events, but for me, the highlight was the basketball. I casually watched a game with my son many, many years ago. He lost interest, but I became a devoted Golden State Warriors fan, and watching Steve Curry strut his stuff in front of the whole world to see his talent was just a highlight for me. Very, very exciting.

Brian Lehrer: Amy, thank you. The US wasn't going to win-- You think NBA players, the US is always going to win the gold medal in basketball, which generally they do, but if Steph Curry didn't go crazy at the end of that game, they wouldn't have. Right?

Will Leitch: Yes. I think that speaks not to Team USA being disappointing, I think it speaks to how great the game has become internationally. I would say, for years, basically, the rule has always been when the United States men's team has its best players, everyone decides they want to play, they dominate everybody. Then the years that they sit it out or they get tired or the top guys don't come out, they lose and then they recover, then there's the redeemed team to fix what happened before.

What I think was really interesting about this year is it's become-- This is going to be a signature moment of Steph Curry's career, what he was able to do in that game. Whereas in the Olympics, it has always seemed like a sideshow or like the US asserting its dominance, now, the best player in the world is Nikola Jokić, who plays for Serbia, and I think the next best player in the world is Victor Wembanyama, who plays for France. I think you're going to see the Team USA put its best teams out there in future years and still lose some time.

I think that was what was exciting about this is to see how good the team from France is, the team from Serbia is. The team from Canada was a terrific team and they didn't even make the medal round. I think that that is one thing-- Basketball has a World Cup, but usually, the top players don't go to it. I think what you're going to see now, Victor Wembanyama lost that game, and he's the next great player in the NBA. He looked devastated when that game was over and almost as if he would come back for revenge John Wick style to come back and win the Olympics at some point.

That's a new thing to see the Olympics part of the overarching sport basketball narrative in the way that the soccer World Cup is with the overarching soccer world. That's a big change. All of basketball has gotten better internationally. It required Steph Curry to have that incredible game for the US to win that. That's a great thing for Steph Curry. It's a great thing for the US, but it's also a great thing for basketball internationally. That just shows how good everybody's getting.

Brian Lehrer: We get a couple more in here before we run out of time. Mary in Dutchess County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mary.

Mary: Hi. Love the show. I was just thrilled with watching the surfing. It ended in such a wonderful storytelling event. The Polynesian 22-year-old surfer, Kauli Vaast, won gold. It was kind of soothing to watch as the surfers were waiting for their waves and then the big, huge wave would come up. I just thought it was such a poetic ending that the native surfer got to win gold.

Brian Lehrer: Nice story, Mary. That's another thing about the Olympics. You were referring to something related before, Will, but you become fans, at least for two weeks, of people you've never heard of before. For me, it was the men's gymnast Frederick Richard, who I had never heard of before the Olympics. Everybody was all psyched to watch Simone Biles in the women's gymnastics. That, of course, was great, but I was so turned on by Frederick Richard, who was just so electric on the floor and on the equipment.

Will Leitch: Yes, it's funny because a lot of times during these events when they're over-- I have friends that follow gymnastics year-round and are really into it and they find it almost amusing. They're like, "Oh, yes, we've been loving Frederick Richard for years. We've been loving this for so on." I think sometimes people will feel bad about that like, "Oh, I should be following gymnastics year-round." Listen, it's a great sport by all means, you should follow it if you want to, and you should follow whatever sport you'd like, but certainly, this is--

One of the things I think makes the Olympics so exciting is for an athlete like Frederick Richard, who most people don't think about for the other four years out of the Olympiad. They come here and they have these two weeks where they become this massive superstar and everybody loves them and everyone's so charmed on them, and there's no downside. When you love a football player or love a baseball player, when you follow them all around, eventually, they're going to do something you don't like, or eventually, they're going to lose a game or they're going to disappoint you somehow.

The fun of the Olympics is I will have nothing and you will have nothing but good memories about Frederick Richard moving forward because that was a really wonderful thing. I think that's a great thing about the Olympics. It's fun to have these events and these games where you get into and you get excited and there's just no real downside to them. You just get to enjoy them.

Brian Lehrer: There we will have to leave it. Except I want to acknowledge, and we didn't get to anybody, but a number of people are calling or writing in to say how gratifying it was to see Brittney Griner on the floor and on the podium after her captivity in Russia.

Will Leitch: Very moving. Very moving to see that, and very well deserved.

Brian Lehrer: Will Leitch, contributing editor at New York Magazine, columnist at MLB.com, maybe next time we'll talk about Jazz Chisholm, and founding editor of Deadspin. Thanks so much, Will.

Will Leitch: Of course. Thanks for having me.

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