NBC wants me to hate Michael Phelps

I'm kind of a hater when it comes to sports; like many I tend to find as much enjoyment in disliking teams and athletes as I do in liking them. This is always easier when a team or athlete enjoys a period of dominance, leading to the common hatreds of the Yankees, the Lakers, Duke, the Cowboys, etc. This isn't rational or fair, but luckily it doesn't really have to be. It's just sports. I don't need rational justifications for how I feel in sports like I do for my positions in politics. And I often don't have rational justifications for those! (Zing.)

So as you can imagine I have a natural tendency to dislike Michael Phelps. But I'm fighting it. I really am trying. But NBC is making it so, so hard.

I really wonder how they can know so little about basic human psychology. Most of us are inclined to think less of someone when we hear too much about how great that person is. And NBC's coverage of Phelps, I have to believe, would be wearying even for the most diehard of his fans. It's absolutely unrelenting in the primetime coverage. It's like they have a counter behind the scenes that informs them that they have gone 45 seconds without mentioning Phelps and must quickly amend that problem. I mean Rowdy Gaines, the color commentator for the swimming at the Olympics, takes his Phelps-stroking to a degree that I would argue disrespects the other athletes. During the 4x200 relay last night, they actually showed an inset picture of Phelps while his teammates swam in the relay, and that's definitely disrespectful.

I'm on record on saying that I don't care for this reflexively calling Phelps "the greatest Olympian of all time"; who, exactly, ordained the most golds as the sole criterion for deciding Olympic greatness? There are structural features of swimming that make it uniquely able to facilitate an individual athlete winning a lot of medals. Even a very versatile track athlete simply doesn't have the opportunity to win as many medals as Phelps has won; logistically it's not possible given the schedule of track meets. And who says versatility is the best measure, anyway? How about domination of a specific event. Is Phelps a greater athlete than Edwin Moses? It's not really a fair question to me. And it is certainly unfair to athletes who have literally one opportunity every four years to get a gold medal, like a Greco-Roman wrestler, or a beach volleyball player, or other team sports.

But, look, obviously this is an enormous achievement. And I'd like to like Michael Phelps and root for him. But NBC is making it so hard, by cramming him down my throat every 3 minutes. Swimming and the Olympics have a special place in my heart. Part of what I really like in swimming is the variety, the many opportunities to find interesting stories and enjoy different competitors. NBC is insisting that the only story here is Phelps, and that's not fair or entertaining. And just through the constant repetition of his name and by constantly flogging these same tired story lines, the network is making it much harder for me to like the guy. And that's a shame.

Update: King Kaufman feels the same way.