The Olympics Sap-o-MeterNBC reaches yet another milestone on its magically sappy Olympic journey.
By Josh Levin, Derek Thompson, and Chris Wilson Posted Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008, at 10:41 AM ETThe Sap-o-Meter team chatted online with readers about this project; read the transcript. The Olympics Sap-o-Meter is now a widget. Add it to your Facebook page or blog. Check out Slate's complete coverage of the Beijing Games.
Feeling proud of the United States' Olympic performance so far? NBC certainly is. On an evening filled with track-and-field disappointments and taped gymnastics coverage, the network still managed to say the word proud 10 times on its way to a scintillating 56 Sap Points.
NBC's hyperglycemic coverage also received a syrupy injection from dreams, which racked up a chart-topping 11 mentions. Even Sanya Richards, the American runner who was crestfallen not to win gold in the 400 meters, was described as "waltz[ing] around the stadium very proudly" after her shocking loss. Mom also had a decent day, but its tally of seven utterances failed to keep pace with rival dreams. Oh, and you can forget about the Olympic-sized omission we described yesterday. As American Jonathan Horton watched the scoreboard to see if he would win silver on the high bar, NBC's Al Trautwig called the gymnast's pre-medal delay an "Olympic-sized wait." And with that, NBC reached another milestone: The peacock has now clucked out each of the 33 sap words we selected at the outset of this life-changing journey.
Sappiest Line of the Day: "And now begins Shawn Johnson's dream sequence. She looks like a kid on the best of Christmas mornings."—NBC's Al Trautwig, describing the American gymnast's walk to the medal stand after clinching gold on the balance beam. (Emphasis on sap words is ours.)
The Sap-o-Meter Tag Cloud
adversity
battled
cancer
challenges
courage
cry
death
dedication
determination
dream
emotion
glory
golden
hardship
heart
hero
inspiration
inspire
journey
magic
memory
miracle
mom
mother
Olympic-sized
overcome
passion
proud
sacrifice
spirit
tears
tragedy
triumph
For a primer on how the Sap-o-Meter works, check out our first entry. Did we miss your favorite moment? Send your Sappiest Line of the Day suggestions to .
Sap-o-Meter History
(click on any bar to read that day's entry)
Josh Levin is a Slate senior editor. You can e-mail him at and follow him on Twitter. Derek Thompson is a Slate intern. Chris Wilson is an assistant editor at Slate in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter. Illustration by Nina Frenkel. Interactive feature design by Matt Dodson.
Remarks from the Fray:
Fantastic! This is the literally the best meta-analysis of anything ever created! (Yes, I know I am using treacle-speak--which requires misusing "literally.") I have disliked the Olympics for at least 20 years because of all the inspirational stories. Just show the d*mn games! Every single person at the Olympics has an inspirational story; and, by God, NBC will make sure we know about it--ad nauseum. One theory is that the treacle make sports broadcasts more appealing to women thus increasing the TV ratings; I express no opinion on that theory.
Treacle has infected every other sport as well. "LeBron James's dog's previous owner's daughter's friend had cancer!" If you try to avoid the treacle by attending the games in person, you get bombast instead. Everyone uses the "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE" style in arenas now.
All the athletes and all the facilities may be better these days, but everything else is worse.
--Travis McGee
(To reply, click here.)
Sappy though the television coverage may be, has anyone else tried the online coverage? It is absolutely amazing. Not even an audio commentary -- just pure events. And you can watch many of them in their entirety.
The internet coverage is the The Best Coverage of the Olympics Ever.
--zzzuucx
(To reply, click here.)
You don't need a meter to detect the inanity of NBC's Olympics and other sports coverage. Just a pair of ears and an interest in the sport involved -- which their commentators typically are lacking.
But NBC is outdoing itself with the Olympics. The other night there was a woman's swim heat and one of the competitors was named "Miley". That caused the NBC commentator to completely ignore what was happening on screen and go off on a riff about Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana. If you made up stuff like this in a novel, people would say it was too unbelievable!
--bubba_barry
(To reply, click here.)
Any chance of exporting the Sap-o-meter technology to Australia?
Trust me. Over-the-top, myopic and occaisionally nauseating Olympics coverage is not an exclusively American phenomonon. We might have to change a few of the key words or phrases to include gems such as "Aussie battler", "ANZAC Spirit" and "mateship", but otherwise I would love to run the Sap-o-meter over the 7 Network coverage.
--Downunder bloke
(To reply, click here.)
(8/16)
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Remarks from the Fray:
Fantastic! This is the literally the best meta-analysis of anything ever created! (Yes, I know I am using treacle-speak--which requires misusing "literally.") I have disliked the Olympics for at least 20 years because of all the inspirational stories. Just show the d*mn games! Every single person at the Olympics has an inspirational story; and, by God, NBC will make sure we know about it--ad nauseum. One theory is that the treacle make sports broadcasts more appealing to women thus increasing the TV ratings; I express no opinion on that theory.
Treacle has infected every other sport as well. "LeBron James's dog's previous owner's daughter's friend had cancer!" If you try to avoid the treacle by attending the games in person, you get bombast instead. Everyone uses the "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE" style in arenas now.
All the athletes and all the facilities may be better these days, but everything else is worse.
--Travis McGee
(To reply, click here.)
Sappy though the television coverage may be, has anyone else tried the online coverage? It is absolutely amazing. Not even an audio commentary -- just pure events. And you can watch many of them in their entirety.
The internet coverage is the The Best Coverage of the Olympics Ever.
--zzzuucx
(To reply, click here.)
You don't need a meter to detect the inanity of NBC's Olympics and other sports coverage. Just a pair of ears and an interest in the sport involved -- which their commentators typically are lacking.
But NBC is outdoing itself with the Olympics. The other night there was a woman's swim heat and one of the competitors was named "Miley". That caused the NBC commentator to completely ignore what was happening on screen and go off on a riff about Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana. If you made up stuff like this in a novel, people would say it was too unbelievable!
--bubba_barry
(To reply, click here.)
Any chance of exporting the Sap-o-meter technology to Australia?
Trust me. Over-the-top, myopic and occaisionally nauseating Olympics coverage is not an exclusively American phenomonon. We might have to change a few of the key words or phrases to include gems such as "Aussie battler", "ANZAC Spirit" and "mateship", but otherwise I would love to run the Sap-o-meter over the 7 Network coverage.
--Downunder bloke
(To reply, click here.)
(8/16)