The 2024 Paris Olympics are here! This is like Christmas for me because I’m a HUGE Olympic nerd. No seriously. I have an Olympic flag waving outside my house right now. I’ve been known to decorate my house for the games. When people find out what a huge fan of the Olympics I am, the questions I most often get asked are why and how I’m such a huge fan. I can trace it back 40 years ago this very summer, to the 1984 summer games in Los Angeles. They are the first Olympic games I remember watching with great interest. I think that was due, in large part, the media and marketing blitz that happened with these games that had never happened with the Olympics before.
The TV ratings were astronomically high. More than 180 million Americans watched, making the 1984 Summer Olympics the most viewed event in television history. Ninety percent of all U.S. households had tuned in to the Games at some point. The sponsors that had committed roughly $150 million were thrilled with those numbers. I, myself, was glued to the television every night.
Some of the “firsts” and highlights of the LA games:
- These were the first games that had an Olympic village for the athletes instead of men’s and women’s dormitories.
- The LA Olympic committee asked John Williams to compose something especially for the games and he create “The Olympic Fanfare”, probably the second most recognizable song associated with the Olympic games.
- These are the first games that made use of technology extensively.
- The United States topped the medal count for the first time since 1968, winning a record 83 gold medals and game us American Olympic heroes like Carl Lewis, Greg Louganis, Jackie Joyner Kersey, the entre men’s gymnastics team and Mary Lou Retton and more.
Later that summer, with America still drunk on sweet, golden Olympic success, a large group of the gold medal winners went on tour, making appearances in shopping malls across the country. The nearest appearance to my hometown was Dallas, Texas. Somehow, my family had a trip planned to the DFW metroplex the same weekend and I talked my father into taking me to the mall while we were there (I had fallen IN LOVE with Mary Lou Retton that summer and was hoping to get her autograph and others). The mall was a complete mob. Even standing on the second level we couldn’t get near the railing to look down at the stage. I was able to get small glimpses of the athletes but we got nowhere near the autograph tables. No matter, my Olympic obsession had taken hold and it exists to this day.