The Olympics: Agent of Niche Sports and Advocate of International Sports Culture

Back before the Olympics started, I thought I would only watch the USA men's basketball team and some shooting, table tennis, boxing, and martial arts events. 

But the Olympics have started now, and things have changed.  When my brother woke up this morning, he came down to our rec room and turned on the DVR.  He immediately tuned the TV to WCNC HD, one of the HD channels the Olympics are being telecast on. 

A women's volleyball match between the United States and Japan was on.  As my brother started watching, I was finishing up an article for Bleacher Report, so I wasn't exactly paying attention.  As I put the finishing touches on the article, my brother made multiple loud remarks of astonishment.  Finally I whipped around and asked him what he was reacting to.  He told me to watch one serve, I would see what he was making such a fuss about.  

So I decided to watch the one serve, thinking I would get bored and stop watching after it.  But the one serve actually turned into another, and then another, and soon I realized I had been watching for ten serves.  It's just that the match was so fun to watch that I couldn't stop—every serve was filled with countless amazing plays. 

Soon I realized that volleyball might not be the only entertaining niche sport in the Olympics. 

When the volleyball match went to commercial, my brother and I went to another channel, this one broadcasting a men's badminton match between a Polish player and an Estonian player.  The match wasn't quite as competitive as the volleyball match, but it was still pretty cool to see what these elite athletes could do in a sport I'd never been very good at. 

When the volleyball match and the badminton match were both in commercial breaks, we tuned into yet another channel airing an Olympic event—this one was a women's handball match between France and Angola. 

For those of you who don't know what handball is, it's similar to soccer, except you throw the ball into the net—and I believe you can dribble the ball, similar to basketball, at times.  But I could be wrong.

Anyway, the handball match was fun to watch as well.  Its fast pace and high-scoring nature (there were dozens of goals scored in the part of one match we saw) made it a pleasure to behold. 

As I considered how entertaining these niche sports were,  I realized that there could be even more cool niche sports played in the Olympics that were worth watching. 

Okay, so volleyball isn't as niche as badminton or handball.  But it's not exactly a mainstream sport like basketball or football here in the US, there's no professional volleyball league as far as I know.  But even if there is, it's niche because few know about it, which still proves my point.

But badminton and handball are the very definition of niche in the United States.  Neither are popular or widely played.  As a matter of fact, I don't believe handball is even played around here.  That alone shows its lack of popularity.  Badminton is played here, but not by many, and by no means is it considered a popular sport. 

Then it hit me.  The Olympics do more than just award medals to the best athletes in the world while also attempting to identify which countries are superior to other countries in the world in terms of athletics in general (not the event).  They give niche sports like volleyball, badminton, and handball far more international exposure than what is normal, and they expand our appreciation of sports culture as Americans.  The Olympics are the greatest agent of niche sports and advocate of international sports culture in the world. 

Many Americans know about sport such as basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, and wrestling.  But far fewer of us know much about the canoeing events or fencing, judo, trampoline (trust me, this isn't what you think it is), rowing, sailing, synchronized swimming, or water polo.  The Olympics fix that for us, they expand our appreciation of sports in general and expose us to a part of sports culture that we rarely get involved with. 

The Olympics provide a world stage for a wide variety of sports, both popular and non-popular. This vastly expands the appreciation and knowledge of all viewers towards unfamiliar niche sports.