Well obviously they suck because of the stupidity concerning the opening ceremony. While just about every other major country carried it live, we in the US had it tape delayed for prime time. Worse still, it was edited. The march into the stadium by the athletes was a ˜hack job’. Just because a country only has a couple of athletes does not mean that they are insignificant. These young men and women have spent countless hours honing their skills. Sure most of them will go home without a medal, but give them credit for at least trying.
Of course there are exceptions to the rule. In 1988 I was involved with the Calgary winter games. The ˜nerve center’ was a cavernous room containing more than a 100 people, from geeks to timers, from radio nerds to Satellite guys. It was a loud crowd. Well mostly, a strange hush filled mission control when Eddie The Eagle (English ski jumper) took his place at the top of the 90m jump. In fact the whole world watched with baited breath as Eddie ˜snow ploughed™ his way down the ramp, and managed what was a new Olympic record, the shortest legal 90m jump ever recorded. We also had the colorful Jamaican Bobsled team. Neither Eddie not the Jamaicans had any hope of walking away with a coveted medal, but they gave it their all. What more can you ask?
So, having blown the opening ceremonies NBC today launched into actually covering some sports, well sort of. Obviously every country broadcasting wants to cover the efforts of their own athletes. However, there needs to be a balance, viewers want to watch great athletes regardless of which country they represent. NBC skillfully avoided this aspect. There was zero coverage of China winning the first gold in the games. Well, who cares about women shooting air rifles?
They also completely ignored the 60kg mens judo. While shooting BB guns at targets might be boring, Judo is anything but. The super light weight 60kg class is fast and action packed. This is great TV! BTW Russian Arsen Galstyan was the winner. The final bout only lasted 40 seconds, Galstyan scoring a winning ‘ipon’ throw. But NBC could not squeeze in 40 seconds to show it!
Nope, NBC decided that what we all needed to watch was the qualifying rounds women’s Basketball. Watching the (top seeded) US team crush Croatia was a boring and pointless waste of an hour. Another couple of hours was spent on the qualifying rounds of some of the swimming competitions. And right now they are boring the pants off everyone with Volleyball! Watching the (top ranked) US Womens team against underdog Korea is hardly riveting action.
I guess that we should be grateful for small mercies, to the best of my knowledge neither Lawn Bowling, Croquet or Cricket are on the Olympic roster. I could only imagine the NBC coverage if they were, and the US had teams!
The Olympics is not about one country, it is about the wonderful athletes that take part. NBC gets an ‘F’ for Fail on my scorecard. Obviously some people will tell me that I can fix the problem by paying (through the ass) for an enhanced access to live feeds. Sure I could, but if NBC hadn’t been so damn stupid as to pay $1.2 billion for the TV rights they would not need to rape the viewers!
Simon Barrett
31 users commented in " Why NBC Sucks At Covering The Olympics "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI agree – and where was the coverage of men’s swimming??? Lochte and Phelps not covered? Unbelievably bad job by NBC.
Criminal! The last time there was a Summer Olympics you didn’t have to pay so much for streaming internet charges. Of course, then, the coverage was better. Those kids from the US should flip NBC anchors the birds when they ask for face time. NBC has stolen their glory and the pride of the US in rooting for their team and flushed it.
I for one am not going to sit in front of the TV at 8:00pm to see a swimming final that took place 6hrs earlier. Especially since I already know the results. Extremely bad job by NBC on coverage. They screwed up on opening coverage, they did a horrible job on today’s coverage, and I’m sure tomorrow will be no different. Sadly, I believe NBC out bid Fox & ESPN/ABC for coverage of the 2016 & 2020 games. 🙁
Imagine Lochte’s parents or childhood friends being unable to watch his win live
Also, they wont show the whole track races either. For example, they will cut away in the middle of the 5k (a 13 minute race) and then come back and let the viewers watch the last two laps. Even though the race is only 13 minutes they cut about 7 minutes out. Also, I heard the mens 100m dash final will not be shown live. A potential matchup of Gatlin, Gay, Bolt, Powell, and Blake not being shown live?! That is complete bs. Can’t agree more about the Phelps vs. Lochte thing- they completely screwed that up too. The viewers are getting a highlighted version of the olympics and we deserve more than that.
NBC sucks for not only tape delaying until prime time but then holding back marquis events until late in the prime time making the delay even longer. Tape delay is fine when the events are at a time when most of the US is sleeping but not when we are all awake – particularly for weekend events!
I’ve lived in the States since 1989. Olympic coverage always sucked. Always. It isn’t about enjoying the greatest athletes of the world compete in real time. It is about squeezing in as many commercials for you to watch as they can.
NBC is an idiotic bs commercial broadcast company that is in it for the mighty dollars and NOT quality.
I didn’t know who won the swimming race today until Brian Williams on the nightly news said that Phelps came in 4th place and RL winning. WTH man? I’ve got all those extra channels of the uninteresting (Croatia vs Ecuador) events and the only good news is that it’s commercial free.
The main problem of the Olympics on the main NBC channel is that it’s 75% commercials, human interest stories and that blowhard 5 foot nothing, 100 and nothing Bob Costas. They even edited Misty May and Keri Walsh in the second set today. That should be against the law.
I hate how they’re so negative about other countries, always on the negative from the parade through the events. “they’re not expected to win any medals. Their country is in a mess right now. They’re never won anything.” They also never shut up during the ceremonies. Agree they also don’t cover enough of the other competitors. What’s the point of watching a competition if they don’t show our competitors? I was out of town today in Brownsville and was so lucky to have access to two Mexican tv stations comig through, with very unbiased coverage of the day’s events, equally showing different nations and the awards being won. NBC is ridiculous.
Watching the NBC coverage is as if one was watching a staged show, as opposed to the world’s greatest sporting event! From irrelevant interviews in the middle of events, fast forwarding some events, and completely ignoring others. WIth all their editing, they have butchered every single event, that the feeling of competition and awesomeness of the olympics gets lost. It gives the feeling that all the events are set, and the US will win every single event.
I understand that being a network from the United States they will cover the US athletes more than other athletes, but this is done in an extreme manner. So far, with the exception of swimming to a certain extent, they have only covered the US participation in all the events, while clearly covering the US competition in those events.
In volleyball, only the US matches were broadcast while ignoring the other teams. Would it be too much to ask to at least broadcast the other teams that are in the same group with the United States? In gymnastics, once again the US team took center stage, while only partially showing the Chinese performance (I think because it did not go too well) and a few other gymnasts.
The US might be a powerhouse in the olympics, but this gets lost when all the audience gets to see is the “greatness of the USA team.”
Worst Coverage of Olympics…
I watched local Dallas NBC affiliate today, when the olympics of which there are dozens of competitions going on simultaneoulsly during the day… So what is on a 2pmish? A d a m n infomercial!!
I completely agree with this article. Their coverage is horrendous, why must they be so biased? In the opening ceremony, for every country that passes only one athlete was mentioned with captions on the screen. But then we have the USA team, and you have other 5 captions of different athletes being thrown at you. WOW.
Agree to all the comments above.. AND, if you only watch TV over the air (OTA) with an antenna, you are not allowed to view the live coverage via your smartphone.. ONLY if you have a PAY TV PROVIDER are you “allowed” to view by smartphone.. Goes to prove that ALL at nbc are GREEDY PHQUEING BASTARDS…
I agree, NBC sucks. There needs to be a place to go where everyone can go to let NBC know that they suck. I’m sure that there are millions of people that think that their coverage of the Olympics is complete crap. Thanks NBC for showing me stuff that happened several hours ago just so that you can get “prime time” viewers and ratings.
Did they forget that the internet is world wide? Do they expect everyone to not go online or to not talk to anyone or to not watch any other channel so that there are no spoilers? I would like to bypass NBC all together and watch live feeds from Europe or somewhere else, I don’t even care if I don’t understand the language.
not just mobile/smartphone… I have been unable to watch anything via NBC website. I’ve had to watch via CTV/BBC. Thanks for nothing NBC!!!
DITTO!
I have mediacom but I could not get online to see the gymnastics this morning and it really ticks me off!
Now they are all done, and I can’t see anything until tonight, thanks to NBC for monopolizing the video feed.
FOX should have gotten the Olympics!
NBC sucks!!!!!
I understand the tape delays and all that, but what is truly annoying is the constant wah wah wah between whatever events they actually do show. Their internet feeds are a joke. I remember as a kid actually getting to watch more of the different sports than we do now. I got so bored with the coverage in the last Olympics I stopped caring and watching and this one is shaping up to be the same. I am so tired of hearing about Michael Phelps, no offense to him, but there are other athletes.
One of the main things I object to is so called free streaming by NBC. You must have cable to get this “free” streaming. I would like to see some events they don’t show on network over the air broadcast. I would not even object to their playing commercials as they do on the over the air broadcasts. In this day and time it’s rediculous to not be able to access such coverage online.
I completely agree. And worse is filling up viewing time with stupid commentators talking about nothing. And seriously, Ryan Seacrest?????? NBC has completely bothced the coverage.
NBC sucks big time.
First they are a homer network and could careless about other countries besides the USA. They probably think whole world revolves around the USA.
Second, why in the world would they tape delay the events when people already know the results of those events. At least up here in Canada, we can get the results live on CTV, TSN, and Sportsnet, and they show different events live at the same time unlike NBC.
I am 63 years old, and this is the worst Olympics coverage since my first viewing of the wizzard of oz. And that goes back aways.
I don’t know if this is happening everywhere but commercials during soccer games?
The few soccer games they are actually bothering to televise are being subjected to commercial interruptions?
WTF?
I agree. It’s bad enough to wait until prime time to air events but the really big events are not shown until after 11 pm. Some of us have jobs and can’t stay up that late. Has anyone else also noticed that they rarely show a medal ceremony? You can’t even find them on their website.
Gotta love Canada’s coverage……
so sick of swimming..6 full days of swimming and i wish they would drown. please show me judo, lifting anything different for once. dont show me blowouts either they suck too. i hate phelps as well. they only show what gets the best ratings..wtf it sucks.could we see something live besides the stioopid horse thing..
and stop showing me stories on the 96 gymnastics…wtf boring
NBC coverage sucks to no end. My dad is getting better coverage in the Caribbean…. Just sucks
Why do they show beach volleyball when 100meters finals is on???? Idiots
Yes NBC sucks. I am so sick of the stupid idiotic comments made by the idiots covering gymnastics. These people should be made to listen to theirselves. I have been watching BBC on the computer. Outstanding free coverage. The commentators are 1,000% better and don’t make endless stupid comments.
Why can’t we ever watch boxing???
vollyball, swimming, and gymnastics is boring to watch!
Bob Costas is a pasty yuppie mugshot representing all that is wrong with today’s society
I had a moment with the last world cup – it sucked so bad I swore never to ever watch soccer again
I feel the same way about the olympics
and I don’t care about any of England’s royal douche-bags
We’re watching the latest cross country event, the mens 4×6.1 and these announcers are horribly wrong on almost all of their comments, and how did they not have full coverage of what happened to the first leg for the USA? Are they even there or in a phone booth somewhere in Siberia? How inept! The scratchy voiced guy is wrong so much he’s annoying! I know it’s not Da Bears but we take the Winter Olympics seriously! My family needs more then pretend coverage!!
Leave A Reply