They didn’t do well so they didn’t have the same interest. When the Americans realize they’re atrociously bad at real 15 a side rugby they’ll quickly lose interest and the romance period will be over

Well, whatever the reason, welcome to the world of Rugby! You’ll find the full-fat, fifteen-a-side game to be different but if it’s not to your taste then there’s plenty of 7’s out there. The full game is very much a Winter sport in Europe so expect some matches played in awful weather, hardly any pitches are covered and natural turf is the norm. Wheelchair Rugby in the paralympics is an even tougher sport; words fail me so just give it a watch!

For Tokyo maybe the time difference made it harder or the us wasn’t in the medal rounds and wasn’t covered as well we have very our team centric coverage

The US typically covers sports that we have a chance of medaling in. (Is that the same elsewhere?) Thanks to streaming it has been much easier to watch all events.

I know for myself and many others, Tokyo was hard/emotional to watch coming off the pandemic. (Empty stadiums and masks everywhere was just a constant reminder of what we all went through). And like a few others have said, there was no Ilona Maher for Rio. I really believe the spotlight she has brought to the sport has made her an incredible ambassador of rugby if you will. I started following her because she was hilarious, and through this week I completely fell in love with the entire game.

2016 was the last Olympics before streaming really came into its own. Peacock didn’t exist yet nor did “networks” like YouTube tv that could condense nbc’s coverage into one place. 2020 was peacocks first Olympics and the platform handled it horribly. This year has been much better overall for coverage and yes it helps that they had such a memorable tournament. Glad for it, my wife played 7’s at Oxford almost 30 years ago, only American on the team. Its come a long way since.