So the "Games of the XXXI Olympiad" have their official opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro tonight, around 7:30 P.M. ET on NBC.

If you grew up digging off-beat sports and are of a certain age (read: my age), this was the day you waited four fricking years for. Finally, a chance to see sports that network broadcasters couldn't be bothered to cover on any sort of regular basis (track and field, rowing, archery, soccer, table tennis, etc), get introduced to a weird, attractive cast of characters from Europe, Africa, and elsewhere (that tragic John Akii-Bua was one fast motherfucker!), and watch Cold War proxy battles up the wazoo (America's '70s decline started here)! God bless you, Jim McKay, you glorious, yellow-jacketed anchorman whose poise and occasional breakdowns guided us through the tragic and the triumphant like nobody before or since.

But that was then—and by then, I mean any time prior to the Atlanta games, which featured terrorist violence and the absolutely shittiest mascot of any sports-related event ever (see image to right of Whatizit or "Izzy"). Over the past several decades, the Olympics (both Summer and Winter) have faded as a meaningful arena of athletic competition and spectacle. In this, they are like many artifacts of the long 20th century—World's Fairs, say, and beauty contests—that have outlived their heydays. The World Cup is gaining in strength, while the Olympics…well, it was nice knowing you.

Here are some of the many reasons why (relatively speaking) nobody gives a shit about the Olympics anymore, and why that's not a bad thing at all.

[*] Updated, August 7: A number of people in the comments and on social media have asked a variation on the question: What's wrong with using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs)? Longtime readers of my work know that I'm generally in favor of PEDs and I refuse to draw any sort of bright line between training regimens and drugs. Each are unnatural in their own ways and each is designed to give competitors an advantage; each also might help but also might not. In some sports—Major League Baseball and the NFL come to mind—acknowledgement of the widespread use of PEDs have had little to no effect on attendance and interest. Indeed, for baseball and football, individual players might get bad press but the fans have kept on coming because they like the overall results. In other sports, though, the exposure has caused an evacuation of spectators. Professional cycling has always used PEDs—early Tour de France riders used booze, strychnine, and caffeine—but revelations about Lance Armstrong and others severely damaged interest in the sport in the United States. I'd argue that something similar happened with the Olympics too, where the producers of the events were constantly bombarding us with rhetoric about how high-minded the goals of the Games are. This isn't a moral position, it's simply an observation: When fans feel like they're being lied to, they often (though not always) will head for the exits.