Last summer, the Olympics made its triumphant quadrennial return to the global stage in Paris to undeniable anticipation and fanfare. It was a stark divergence from the 2020 Games in Tokyo—delayed to summer 2021 due to the pandemic—when athletes competed before bare stands.
In Paris, the streets were bursting with crowds, their cheers reverberating through the city and onto television screens. If you weren’t there, we bet you were watching.
NBCUniversal reports that viewership among its platforms increased 82% compared with Tokyo, making these Games the most-streamed Olympics ever.
The Games rekindled an electric energy across the world, restoring a sense of collective joy and hope at watching athletes transcend the boundaries of human ability.
“I think we were always looking for something inspiring, something positive to focus on. The Olympics gives us that without prejudice,” says Santa Clara University men’s soccer coach Cameron Rast ’92, who served as captain for the U.S. team at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Rast was just as awestruck as the rest of us watching this year’s Games. Perhaps because the “pursuit of athletic excellence and peace through sport” is so compelling, he says. “It is the essence of the Olympics.”