rest assured that the general public in germany also doesnīt care about events with no medal chance or even no participation by german athletes. Not much different in many other european countries from what i can tell. Or sports that arenīt popular the rest of the year.
The main channels ARD/ZDF (the "state-channels") showed basically only events with german medal candidates or at least well known german participants live unless it was a traditional event (like the mens downhill), other events were either shown delayed or in short highlight videos.
Eurosport on the other hand showed more other stuff live. LIke they do year round. And you know what ? There ratings are sad at times ...
Itīs an interest thing more than anything imo. Just like an NBA or NFL fans will rather watch their home team than just about any other game and the casual "neutral" fan will obviously rather tune in to watch 2 big name teams than , say, the Thunder playing the Hawks.
You donīt allways need to dig that deep to explain people
