The Deal

There's a deal we viewers have with the Olympic athletes. Once every four years we will lavish them with attention, admiration and endorsement deals for doing things we could otherwise care less about. But in exchange they have to represent us, wear our flags so we can associate ourselves with them, and put in all possible effort for the collective, rather than personal, glory. Some of the stars of the individual sports may not think this is fair, but they can just suck it up, because that's the deal.