The Olympics have experienced a significant comeback, with Milan Cortina viewership doubling Beijing numbers and becoming the most-watched Winter Games in a decade, according to NBC.
MILAN -- For an entire decade, the Olympics couldn't stop getting it wrong.
The Games were held in the middle of autocracies, the middle of pandemics and the middle of nowhere. They burned money organizing events that no one attended. They installed them in time zones where no one could see them.
Athletes were miserable. TV ratings plummeted like ski jumpers. The whole enterprise of the Olympics risked sliding into irrelevance.
But ever since a pair of Italian ski legends lit the cauldron in Milan, just 18 months after the summer fête of Paris, the decline of the Games has felt like a distant memory. Ratings have surged. Crowds have roared to life. The inevitable scandals aren't about state-sponsored doping schemes but cheating curlers and a philandering biathlete.
Halfway through Milan Cortina, it's clear that the biggest comeback at the Olympics is the Olympics itself.
"On all accounts, the Olympics are back," said Christophe Dubi, the executive director of the Olympic Games. "The world needs events like this one."
Over the past decade, this event coincided with disease, geopolitical hostility and even the occasional threat of nuclear war. It took the one-two punch of Paris and Milan to restore the luster of the Olympic rings.
Overall viewership for Milan Cortina has doubled the putrid Beijing numbers of four years ago, according to NBC, setting up these Winter Games to be the most-watched in a decade. Americans who didn't know the Olympics were happening last week have become obsessed. And the International Olympic Committee only expects that wave to keep rolling as it prepares on two fronts for Los Angeles 2028.
"One is the logistics. Pretty boring," Dubi said. "The second is the magic. This is what gives you goosebumps and stars in the eyes."
Which is precisely what the Games had lacked for so long.
Sochi and Pyeongchang had their own problems, but the future of the Olympics looked especially bleak after the Beijing Games, staged inside a bubble sealed off from the city. They began with the IOC president urging a crowd of global leaders that included Vladimir Putin to give peace a chance. As soon as they ended, Russia invaded Ukraine.
That dark cloud lifted in Paris. Organizers sought not only to remind the world that the Olympics were about joie de vivre, but also that the project didn't need to be a $50 billion boondoggle. Milan Cortina has made it a point of pride that 85% of its competition venues are existing or temporary.
The difference with a spectacle held in February -- and not the middle of European summer breaks -- is that you can walk around the city without knowing the Olympics are here. But inside the venues, the stands are packed. Up in Bormio and Cortina, alpine skiing has found a postcard backdrop of actual Alps. And after Games held without fans on glorified soundstages, more than a half-million spectators have descended on Northern Italy.
For those watching at home, there is live streaming coverage of every single event. In this choose-your-own-adventure Olympics, Americans have discovered the juiciest drama and funniest comedy on television is the reality show from Milan and the Dolomites. They also get to see the action from novel angles, thanks to a fleet of drones that have emerged as the buzziest stars of these Olympics.
With obscure sports, fewer events and far more clothing, the Winter Olympics have always been weird. But even by those standards, these Games have been profoundly and comically strange.
In the first week alone, there was speculation about performance-enhancing genitalia enlargement in ski jumping and a judging controversy in figure skating.
There was also the Norwegian biathlete who celebrated his bronze medal by revealing on national television that he'd cheated on his now-ex-girlfriend and begging her for a second chance. (Not since Nancy and Tonya went to the Lillehammer Games have Americans been so transfixed by an Olympic saga in Norway.)
Meanwhile, the story lines on the ice and snow have captivated people around the world, whether they're following along on their phones or flipping through the pink pages of La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Up next for the Winter Olympics is a return to places that know how to host them, like the French Alps in 2030 and Salt Lake City in 2034. But first, the global sporting event that has suddenly rediscovered its glamour and starpower is going to Hollywood.
When tickets went on sale for Los Angeles 2028, the IOC received more than 1.5 million requests in the first 24 hours -- and the Games are still more than two years away.
"So imagine," Dubi said. "They will go like croissants in Paris."