my thoughts on the Olympics

[Zech Marquis]

I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more, if those fuckers at NBC didn't fuck up how we "watch" the goddamn thing! This tape delay bullshit left me NOT wanting to watch the Olympics--I have Direc TV, I have iTunes, how about letting people buy liveevent programming blocks or very short delay? With NO commercials (and have the ad logos in the corner like it's done during soccer matches o fsc and gol tv?) I always like to watch the ski jump events, but the assholes were too busy worried about the ladies figure skating and that Bushie speed skater...i only wish the IOC can publicly smack NBC for their sorry ass "broadcasting" :argh:

[jakefrep]

1. For those of us that work during the day...

NBC sucked. The good live events are on CNBC, MSNBC, and USA during the day. I beleive it was NBC that offered something called the TripleCast for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. It was a pay-tv package of three channels dedicated to showing events in their entirety with a bare minimum of commercial interruption. It didn't do to well, but it was an idea ahead of its time.

[kryckis]

2. I can't imagine watching the Olympics with commercials..

..even corner ads. That's just wrong. My condolences.

[northzax]

3. I want BBC Sport

which showed events in their entirety. Sure, that means watching 70 bobled runs, but hey, that's better than only watching the americans.

the IOC will say nothing to NBC, NBC is the reason the Winter Olympics exist at the level they do, the rights fees for the US are greater than the rest of the world combined. And US multinationals pay huge sums to affiliate with the Olympics (including Coke, the former IBM now Lenovo, and others.) Without the US, the Olympics would return to a smaller sporting event, without the huge corporate sponsors who keep the IOC and the national committees rolling in champagne and caviar.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

4. NBC tried that during the Summer Olys in 1992 at Barcelona.

They had a thing called "Triplecast". Mr. Wonderful and I bought at the time, I can't remember how much it was, but I don't think they made any money on it, so they dropped it.

I'll admit the tape delay was really annoying, but I found myself for the past two weeks, spending an inordinate time on-line at NBC's Olys website where if wanted, you could find the results pretty easily and closely to real time.

Hey the next Winter Olys are in Vancouver, so we should get some real-time broadcasting. However, the next Summer Olys are in Beijing. It'll be the broadcasting disaster that Sydney was all over again...