It's Never Been Easier to Watch the Olympics, Nor Be Spoiled While Trying to Avoid Results

by Julian Spivey

​It has never been easier to watch the Olympics than in today’s modern world.

That’s a fact.

There was a time when you only got to see whatever Olympic events NBC (and ABC before it) deemed important enough to show in primetime, almost always time- and tape-delayed due to differing time zones around the globe.

Today, you can watch any and every Olympic event, either live or replay, on Peacock. And, for those who don’t want to pay the $10.99/month subscription fee, you may still have access to multiple events – both live and tape-delayed across the NBC family of networks, which include USA Network and CNBC.

But in some ways, it has never been more of a bitch to watch the Olympics than it today’s modern world. Yes, I have access to every event via Peacock and what I’ve DVR’d via YouTube TV. But I also have a full-time job and need a normal amount of sleep, so I have a small window of time to fit as many Olympic events in as possible.

People have always had full-time jobs and a need for sleep throughout the history of televised Olympic events. So, what’s the big deal?

The Internet. And, more so, social media.

It’s the job of journalists to relay news, which includes the results of sporting events. And journalists have always done this, but it used to be done through newspapers and the nightly news, which were either out the next day or could be easily avoided.

I can easily avoid news and sports websites like ESPN. No problem! But I still find myself constantly spoiled by the results of Olympic events, and the reason is social media sites like Facebook and Threads.

Of all of the things that can be spoiled, the worst are sporting events, because the whole point of watching a sporting event is to find out who won, or, in the case of the Olympics, who placed in the medals.

Yes, we choose what to follow on social media. And, back when that was the only way you saw anything on social media, you could easily unfollow or mute pages or profiles that might spoil you. But now the algorithm is key to social media. Social media no longer gives you what you have asked to see; it gives you what it believes you want to see. And, if you are a sports fan, or have an interest in the Olympics – based on prior usage or posts – it’ll show you sports and Olympic content. Thus, there is literally no way to use social media – or at least from what I know about it – without being spoiled during the Olympic Games. The only way to completely avoid being spoiled would be to go on a social media fast for the duration of the Games, which might honestly do us all a bit of good (social media is a societal cancer, after all), but how many of us are capable of breaking the habit of scrolling or opening our apps during moments of boredom throughout the day. I don’t want to be spoiled but still find myself struggling to avoid using social media.

I fully realize this is the biggest “first-world problem,” but it’s proven to be a major issue for my enjoyment of the Olympics over the past few Winter and Summer games. I wonder how many others experience this.