But even from the moral comfort of a couch, Xi Jinping’s internal repression, external hacking of foreign reporters, absorption of Hong Kong and antidemocratic compact with Mr. Putin—struck on the eve of the Opening Ceremonies—makes the Beijing Olympics a bit too redolent of the Munich Games in 1936 to merit this viewer’s tube time.

Boycotting TV sports seems to have become a habit with me. Mostly these invisible protests have been efforts to be free of association with professional sports’ insistent political correctness. Last April, (“Yes, Boycott Baseball”) I deserted the diamond after Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred ostentatiously pulled the All-Star Game out of Atlanta, joining the corporate pile-on of the Georgia Legislature’s voting-rules bill. It was an easy call, insofar as Mr. Manfred months earlier had forced my hometown Cleveland Indians to scrap their century-old team name.

Professional sports’ success depends largely on its ability to give fans a respite from the worries of daily life. But of late pro sports has decided it must take “stands” on some of the most fraught and wearying political issues of our time.