I didn’t enjoy it. Was more about the pageantry than the athletes. The athletes almost seemed like an afterthought.
I always love the trivia and facts about the nations and athletes and there was none of that.
Right, I didn't see much because as I said above I thought the NBC presentation was poor. Obviously the producers of the NBC production believe that is what Americans want to see, and not the way if was when we used to watch the Olympics. I remember Jim McKay and those productions were so simple, and so good. Probably were done with one tenth the people that use today . Simply show what is happening, and use commentary to add to the scene.
Now NBC has seemed to have decided that the Parade of nations is not something that American viewers want to focus on, and rather it is just a chance to advertise for the celebrities who they will focus their tv coverage on for the next 2 weeks . I have always been a bit hit and miss on some of the performances during Olympics ceremonies, but the parade of nations. The little factoids about different countries, etc. were always the absolute highlight of any Olympics
I will say , as much as I thought the parade of nations along the river would be awesome, and maybe in some ways it was. I didn't realize that they would be putting multiple nations on single boats . Not sure I loved that, but maybe in person it worked well.
I still remember spending the 1996 Olympic opening ceremony in Centennial park watching the broadcast, which was hosted in the park by Sinbad, who would come out during the commercials . And then riding MARTA back to my hotel, with dozens of the teens who had performed during the ceremony on the same train still in their leotards, and with the wings they had as part of the costume