... the smallest American television audience for a Summer Olympics in the past 33 years, according to preliminary data from NBCUniversal released over the weekend.

Public opinion polls show that the overwhelming majority of Japanese citizens wanted the government to cancel the Olympics.

Instead, the Japanese government opted for a one-year delay due to the COVID pandemic. Even still, with Tokyo under a COVID state of emergency, spectators have been banned from practically all Olympic events, eliminating the economic boost that the Olympics are supposed to create (although research shows that practically every Olympic Games is a major money loser for the host city).