Each day during the Olympics, THE DAILY offers our take on the business performances of some of the people, sponsors, broadcasters and other entities around Rio.
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GOLD: TEAM USA -- We feel like singing the song from "Team America: World Police" … “America, F#@& Yeah!” What else can you say when the U.S. dominates the medal count like it did in Rio, winning 46 golds and 121 medals overall. That was Team USA’s best performance since the boycott-diluted 1984 Games. A big shout-out to Scott Blackmun, Larry Probst and the rest of the team at the USOC, as well as all the national governing bodies, their officials and coaches.
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SILVER: MICHAEL PHELPS & USAIN BOLT -- They’re the two greatest Olympians in their respective sports -- if not in all sports -- and their Olympic careers largely overlapped. The numbers are stunning. Michael Phelps’ gold-medal haul alone from the last four Games has been six, eight, four and now five, respectively. Usain Bolt pulled off the triple-triple in track’s sprint events when nobody had ever won three straight in either the 100M or 200M. We hope you enjoyed it while it lasted because we might never see anything like either one of them again.
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BRONZE: NBC -- They’ve been beaten up the last two weeks on some of their production, certainly the ratings weren’t what they’d like and the “Today” show hosts do make us cringe, but NBC was ambitious in showing every competition live somewhere, and it led to a financial windfall. And let’s not under-estimate what a 15 rating is these days. That’s still a big number, averaged across 17 straight nights. So it doesn’t get to hear its anthem played, but in our mind, NBC is still on the podium.
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TIN: RIO 2016 AND THE IOC -- It was nice to watch, but in the end, Rio had no business hosting these Games, and the organizing committee showed it time and time again. From things not being finished, to filthy conditions, to not understanding how concessions work or how to fill venues or how to keep the water in a pool properly chlorinated -- the organization and functionality of the Rio Games was a mess. And if the IOC wants to wash its hands of that, it should do so in the dirty water of Rio.
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