Watching the Olympic Games

On the X Games, a flaming piano on a river, and the real legitimacy of the Olympics

The opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games drew huge ratings for NBC: About 29 million viewers. That's a big increase over the Tokyo Games, which undoubtedly pleases the company's executives -- but a huge audience is really a statement of legitimization.

■ The Olympic Games as we know them only matter because we agree that they matter -- it's not automatic; it's a choice. There are other global competitions -- world championships, World Cups, even X Games. There were athletes well before the first modern Olympics in 1896, and something else could conceivably be bigger than the Olympics someday.

■ That the Olympics are treated as the pinnacle is entirely a function of the consent of audiences and athletes alike. And in that is a lesson for the rest of life that is much bigger than any story about sports. It's a lesson that abstract concepts have to take real forms, and those real forms have to be legitimized by choice.

■ A flaming piano floating down the Seine isn't peace; it's a performance. But kicking Russia out of the Olympics for barbarically invading Ukraine is a concrete step in the name of peace that accrues to the credit of the International Olympic Committee.

■ The Games have a decidedly imperfect history of taking concrete actions on ideals like peace. But the more they do, the more they earn the legitimacy of a watching world.