Why I Don't Care About Any Other Sport When the Summer Olympics Are On

Ever since the NBA Playoffs were nearing their end and people realized that they would have to suffer through a summer with just baseball, my timeline has been flooded with "wake me up when it's football season" posts.  Now that NFL training camps are open and preseason is here, everybody's posting all of this news about how this receiver is torching that high-profile cornerback or how some former No. 2 overall draft pick is back in impressive form...in practice.  Although football has been my favorite sport since taking the reins from basketball in the late 90s and hasn't been unseated by any other sport since, I won't be as interested in football as I am with the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio until the Olympics are over.  Are you looking at your computer screen or smart phone with heat in your eyes and bewilderment in your brain?  Good...now allow me to explain...

The North American sports "gods" and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have been in bed with each other since the beginning of time because the Summer Olympics are at the perfect time: during the second half of the MLB regular season and the first half of the NFL preseason.  Let me be clear: when the NFL regular season starts, don't talk to me...and I'm not being facetious when I say that.  Don't call me, limit your text messages and don't ask me to come to anybody's birthday party on a Sunday between September and early February; #FOMOF is real and I will give you a scowling look, slim.  With that said, I'm more upset about missing out on any bit of Simone Biles and Gabby Douglas in gymnastics or the U.S. women's volleyball team winning over Puerto Rico than I would've been about the Hall of Fame Game between the Packers and the Colts that didn't even happen because of "poor field conditions".  Although I was happy that the Nationals beat the Giants on Sunday, it was a 1-0 win and I was more concerned with Serena Williams beating Australia's Daria Gavrilova to avoid the same fate that big sister Venus suffered the night before.  Bottom line, ain't no first-string offense or defense playing at 50 percent or good pitching vs. meh hitting snoozer of a game gonna trump the Olympics.

The beauty of sports is that it brings a palatable amount of drama, and there is little drama worth discussing with NFL preseason or MLB regular season in the midst of the Summer Olympics.  Aside from the questionable snubbing of Gabby Douglas in the all-around competition on Sunday that kept her from defending her 2012 title, the swimming pool has generated enough scuttlebutt by itself.  With the swirling controversy surrounding Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova being allowed to compete after a two-time ban for doping, the swimming audience actually booed Efimova--something I've never heard in Olympic competition to that degree--and U.S. swimmer Lilly King backed up her "I'm not a fan" comments and finger wag at Efimova before the meet with a "victory for a clean sport" in the 100-meter breaststroke as well as a splash in Efimova's lane and the refusal to congratulate or acknowledge her.  Before the men's 200-meter butterfly, South Africa's Chad le Clos--who defeated Phelps in the same event in the 2012 London Olympics--was taunting decorated swimmer Michael Phelps by doing Muhammad Ali-like shimmies and shadowboxing right in front of Phelps.  Whole time, the 23-time Olympic medal winner couldn't care less about le Clos' histrionics as he had the death stare seen above on lock and only cared about his time in the pool--which was good enough for second behind Hungary's Tamas Kenderesi to advance to the finals while le Clos came in third.  What's going on in the NFL or MLB that's even remotely as tense as these incidents?!?!  I'll answer that for you: absolutely nothing.

Finally, here are two more factors to consider.  First, the hoopla behind the four major North American sports is annual whereas the Summer Olympics are a quadrennial event.  When the 2012 London Olympics ended and they announced the 2016 Summer Olympics would be in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, I was like, "Man, I wish I made more money...I wanna be there for that!!!"  Hence, although there is little that tops the anticipation of an NFL season, the Olympics arguably build more steam because 1) there are so many backstories before you even get to the Olympics and 2) they only come around so often.  Second, although football is king of the hill for many of us and baseball is America's pastime, we're still talking two sports versus 306 events in 28 sports over the course of two weeks; basically, it's athletics on steroids--no Yulia Efimova.  I'm saying all of this and track and field has yet to get underway and that's the bread and butter of the Olympics other than women's gymnastics and swimming, let me tell it.  So although I'll probably watch most of Washington's preseason games because they're the home team and it's tradition for me at this point, I will have no problem switching from the Skins and the Falcons to the women's 200-meter breaststroke.  Yup...it's like that.