The popular sports personality/occasional WWE superstar and former NFL punter touched base on the 2024 Summer Olympics opening ceremony during Monday’s edition of his popular program, “The Pat McAfee Show.”
Friday’s opening ceremonies featured performances from world-famous singers, including Lady Gaga, Celine Dion and Philippe Katerine. The opening ceremonies dew 28.6 million viewers alone on NBC and Peacock, per The Hollywood Reporter.
The drag queens’ performance at the ceremonies resembled Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” painting of Jesus Christ with the Twelve Apostles. The performance led to criticism from religious groups and well-known celebrities like Piers Morgan and Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker. Paris Olympic organizers apologized and stated that there was never an intention to disrespect or offend religious groups.
Speaking on the latest edition of his show, Pat McAfee opined that the Olympic ceremony should have simply kept their focus on the athletes and sporting competitions:
“We need people that love sports being a part of sports happenings…we need sports people around. Whenever we have the biggest platform for sports in competition happening once every four years, we need some sports people at least there to say, ‘Hey this is a celebration.’
…We just want it to revolve around sport and we can’t have the opening ceremony be a reason why people won’t watch these athletes who have sacrificed everything about their lives to be great at something and only get to experience and celebrate once every four years.”
“We need people that love sports being a part of sports happenings…we need sports people around. Whenever we have the biggest platform for sports in competition happening once every four years, we need some sports people at least there to say, ‘Hey this is a celebration.’
…We just want it to revolve around sport and we can’t have the opening ceremony be a reason why people won’t watch these athletes who have sacrificed everything about their lives to be great at something and only get to experience and celebrate once every four years.”
