Multiple Olympic opening ceremonies replace the single stadium tradition you remember. You're tuning in to watch Italy's Winter Olympics opening. It's happening in four different places simultaneously. You get to see part of the parade, not all of it. You watch some of the spectacle, miss the rest. Remember when everything happened in one stadium? When it was THE place to go, like the Super Bowl but for the opening ceremony? That's gone. The question: does spreading it across four locations welcome more people in, or does it fragment the experience so nobody sees the whole thing?

The hosts defend it as necessity and spectacle. Paris spread their Olympics across the entire city with performances at the Eiffel Tower and Versailles, creating a showcase of France. Italy faces a unique problem: the Olympics aren't in one space, they're in two major cities. Picking one would be unfair, like divorce parents fighting over custody. The compromise: scatter the ceremony. But here's the tension: for TV audiences, multiple locations show more spectacle and serve as tourism plays for cities that paid massive amounts to host. For people who remember the unified stadium experience, it feels like you're watching pieces of something that should be whole.

This might also be the first AI Olympics the way Vancouver 2010 was the first social media Olympics. AI could change how performances are measured, how data gets collected on athletes, how cameras capture 360-degree photo finishes. Two years from now at LA Summer Olympics, whatever seems cutting-edge today will look primitive. Italy as a winter destination wasn't obvious until you remember the north sits on the Alps. Next time you watch: are you seeing a unified ceremony or marketing materials from four competing tourism boards?

Topics: multiple Olympic opening ceremonies, Italy Winter Olympics, first AI Olympics, Olympic tradition changes, spectacle versus unity

Originally aired on 2026-02-02