Pat McAfee Makes Opinion On Olympics Opening Ceremony Crystal Clear

Three days after the fact, people haven’t stopped talking about the highly controversial opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Many were offended by the work of Thomas Jolly, who claims his tableau was paying homage to the Greek painting “The Feast of the Gods” but many actually interpreted as a mockery of “The Last Supper.”

ESPN’s Pat McAfee is among the latest to speak out on the incident, pointing out everything he thought was wrong about it on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Monday.

“Whenever we have the biggest platform for sports and competition happening every four years, we need some sports people at least there to say, ‘Hey, this is a celebration,’” McAfee said . “I understand the history of France had to be told, however it was told — you do what you’ve got to do — but you’ve got a bruised Statue of Liberty in there…I didn’t respect and appreciate that. There’s a lot people saying what Thomas Jolly put together was incredibly disrespectful, and I think that is certainly a way to view things, that is a way to take it and a lot of people have said that for good reason.

“I have no idea how any of these things are the start of the Olympics or that the Olympics are taking place — it was a form of artistic expression that was paying tribute…whatever. 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’ve sacrificed everything about their lives to be great at something and only get to experience and celebrate once every four years. … You can’t the opening ceremony starting a war, starting a protest. So I hope the next time around we think about that.”

Many have shared publicly that they agree with McAfee’s basic premise: keep it about sports, especially on a stage as wide-reaching as the Olympic games.

Because of Jolly’s misguided attempt at being clever, many athletes and politicians — particularly those who are Christian and reside in the United States — have threatened to boycott the Olympics because of the controversy.

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