Good for her, and good for Naomi Osaka. There is probably no better time in recent history to normalize and discuss the struggles of keeping good mental health. Sadly, I feel entirely too much glee for how much this will set NBC back financially. No Simone = Less eyeballs = Less ad revenue = Less NBC revenue. The (lack of) coverage from NBC surrounding the 99% of the Olympics not related to Simone Biles has been predictably pathetic, and surely their near-singular focus around Biles is partly to blame for her wanting to step back. I have a laundry list of complaints about NBC's Olympic bullshit, but I'll spare you. Americans: Do yourself a favor. 1. Buy a VPN service, 2. Clear your cache/cookies/browser history (or use a different browser than your usual), 3. Set your VPN's IP address to a Canadian server, and 4. Watch the CBC's Olympics coverage via their website.
Lol. You think this brings less eyeballs? I couldn’t have given two shits about gymnastics and yet, here we are. This is a PR dream. A network would rather have this controversy than a straight forward USA win.