Why Are so Many Americans Watching the Olympics?

More than 210 million Americans have watched at least some of the Summer Olympics, according to Meg James of the Los Angeles Times. This is on pace to  outdo the Beijing Olympics, which would not have been expected ahead of time.

She mentions an excellent point from advertising executive Miraj Parikh as to how phenomenal that total is.

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"It's been very surprising that the audience levels have been up double digits compared to Beijing in every major demographic target, despite the fact that most people already knew the event results when they sat down to watch."

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While the weird prime time tape delays have been controversial, obviously people are not too upset about that, or they're at least not upset enough to stop watching the competitions.

However, when you see numbers like that, you have to wonder why the Olympics had been so appealing this year in particular.

I think that the best answer for that is simply that every night that has basically been some type of drama or controversy that has erupted.

For example, even though very few Americans probably care about badminton, we were all curious when certain teams started to throw games.

Even our own athletes have been tangled in controversy somewhat. When Michael Phelps didn't make the podium right off the bat, of course we all had to watch every other race that he swam because all of a sudden his record-breaking career was in jeopardy.

Of course, once he started actually winning his races again, then we all had to watch because we wanted to see him break that record.

Even in men's basketball, since that dominant team barely escaped dropping a contest to Lithuania, we really need to watch every game to see if they actually drop one.

Gymnastics are always full of drama, and rather than reiterate that point over again, let me point you to this article by my fellow Featured Columnist Tyler Donohue. Every event seemed to have a different twist that you never could have expected but wanted to see through to completion.

Really, this has been the magic of the Olympic Games in terms of TV ratings. There has been controversy, drama and remarkable performances all wrapped up into one major event.