Once upon a time...
I would be glued to the tube for the Olympics - the athletes and events were unimaginably exciting, the chance to see obscure sports, to see the best in the world compete, to view world-class spectacle all commanded viewing. Even the losers were winners just by being there.

Now, not so much.
The TV boobs don't show much of anything. When they do show something, it's filtered by jingoism. The non-American winners are ignored, the Americans are alternatively fawned over or tortured by inane questions. The Olympics are reduced to a bad soap opera.

I think I'm averaging a half hour per night, if that.
Good job, NBC. You've killed the golden goose and smashed all the eggs.

CaliforniaGoldenBear;842283675 said:

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Once upon a time...
I would be glued to the tube for the Olympics - the athletes and events were unimaginably exciting, the chance to see obscure sports, to see the best in the world compete, to view world-class spectacle all commanded viewing. Even the losers were winners just by being there.

Now, not so much.
The TV boobs don't show much of anything. When they do show something, it's filtered by jingoism. The non-American winners are ignored, the Americans are alternatively fawned over or tortured by inane questions. The Olympics are reduced to a bad soap opera.

I think I'm averaging a half hour per night, if that.
Good job, NBC. You've killed the golden goose and smashed all the eggs.

---

Used to love the Olympics. Haven't seen one second this time around.

It's better than it used to be but still not very good. The snowboarding is a good upgrade. Men's hockey is compelling. Most of the other sports are Norwegian bar bets.

We're tied with Russia for total metals which is a good showing.

Yeah, haven't watched any of this winter Olympics.

Use to love watching the Olympics starting with the '72 Olympics but NBC killed it in the 80s when the started slicing it up, doing the "up close and personal" tear jerker segments, using almost 100% tape delay and concentrating most of the coverage on the U.S.

The word is you need CBC (Canadian Broadcast Co) which shows straight live feeds.

beelzebear;842283690 said:

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The word is you need CBC (Canadian Broadcast Co) which shows straight live feeds.

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CBC does it right. Shows probably 20 hrs a day live. Great stuff.

CaliforniaGoldenBear;842283675 said:

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Once upon a time...
I would be glued to the tube for the Olympics - the athletes and events were unimaginably exciting, the chance to see obscure sports, to see the best in the world compete, to view world-class spectacle all commanded viewing. Even the losers were winners just by being there.

Now, not so much.
The TV boobs don't show much of anything. When they do show something, it's filtered by jingoism. The non-American winners are ignored, the Americans are alternatively fawned over or tortured by inane questions. The Olympics are reduced to a bad soap opera.

I think I'm averaging a half hour per night, if that.
Good job, NBC. You've killed the golden goose and smashed all the eggs.

---

If you go to NBColympics, they have a TV listing page where you can put in your zip code and tv provider and you can determine when some live events are being televised. As an example, the wife and I watched all the Ice Dancing performances, by ALL participants, live.

The evening NBC show is more or less a summary of the day's events.

I thought the interviewer with Bode Miller after he won his bronze medal was absolutely atrocious and should be fired.. She basically wanted to drive him to tears and did just that.. I wish Morgan his wife would have jumped the fence and kicked that interviewers a$$!

Even though I generally like the Olympics, the barrage of ads has been bad enough that I always pause the program at 8:00 and start watching about 8:25 so that I can fast-forward through the commercials.

It is interesting watching the ski races, with a number of racers (Julia Mancuso, Marco Sullivan, Travis Ganong, Tim Jitloff) that my kids skied with as teammates and raced against from age 6 through Junior Olympics, etc.

If there is a particularly compelling race, I watch it live on the computer at 11:00 p.m., which has way better coverage (shows all of the racers) than seeing only a handful in prime time almost 24 hours later.

Nobody nearly as cool as Jean Claude Killy and Franz Klammer were. Those dudes had style.

Apparently as of last Saturday there have been 25 stories about dead relatives of athletes, which is about 3 per day.

I'm surprised that NBC hasn't turned the Olympics into a full blown reality show yet. Watching the prime time coverage with just clips of highlights in stuff that the US wins at is like watching 4 hours of SportsCenter, except with more commercials and more suckage.

And to think, we're stuck with this garbage until at least 2020. I'm seriously hoping ABC/ESPN takes over, because this garbage from NBC is just pitiful.

egbear82;842283708 said:

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I thought the interviewer with Bode Miller after he won his bronze medal was absolutely atrocious and should be fired.. She basically wanted to drive him to tears and did just that.. I wish Morgan his wife would have jumped the fence and kicked that interviewers a$$!

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Ugh! I saw this too. She asked a question about Bode's brother, he started tearing up, then she went in for the kill and reduced him to a puddle of tears.
Anything to create drama.

yoshibear;842283711 said:

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It is interesting watching the ski races, with a number of racers (Julia Mancuso, Marco Sullivan, Travis Ganong, Tim Jitloff) that my kids skied with as teammates and raced against from age 6 through Junior Olympics, etc.

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You too?

Snowboard cross is awesome..

Go!Bears;842283691 said:

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CBC does it right. Shows probably 20 hrs a day live. Great stuff.

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Everytime the Olympics come around I am absolutely blown away at how poor the American coverage is. For a nation that is absolutely obsessed with athletics it is a joke how bad the coverage is.

As a Canadian, the CBC coverage is phenomenal. Every minute of every event is webcast in HD on the CBC website with the ability to watch previous archived footage and pause/rewind live footage. It's tremendous.

I keep waiting for Americans to put their foot down and demand an overhaul to how the games are covered in the States. I expect it will happen eventually but am surprised it still hasn't come.

bearister;842283721 said:

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Nobody nearly as cool as Jean Claude Killy and Franz Klammer were. Those dudes had style.

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Ah! Der Kaiser at Insbruck:


Heroes once walked the earth.

AlbertaBear;842283738 said:

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Everytime the Olympics come around I am absolutely blown away at how poor the American coverage is. For a nation that is absolutely obsessed with athletics it is a joke how bad the coverage is.

As a Canadian, the CBC coverage is phenomenal. Every minute of every event is webcast in HD on the CBC website with the ability to watch previous archived footage and pause/rewind live footage. It's tremendous.

I keep waiting for Americans to put their foot down and demand an overhaul to how the games are covered in the States. I expect it will happen eventually but am surprised it still hasn't come.

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Given NBCUniversal is owned by Comcast and GE (51/49 respectively), there's no way Americans can simply put their foot down. NBC paid $4.x BILLION for the rights to the 4 Olympics between 2014 and 2020. We have no say, and we get what they give us and if we don't like, they don't give a flying f***.

CaliforniaGoldenBear;842283739 said:

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Ah! Der Kaiser at Insbruck:


Heroes once walked the earth.

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"Klammer was never an elegant downhill skier, his focus was speed and victory. In his descents he appeared at times to be dangerously off balance. In spite, or perhaps because of his unique style of skiing, he was able to consistently dominate a field of gifted competitors." [Wikipedia]

CaliforniaGoldenBear;842283675 said:

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Once upon a time...
I would be glued to the tube for the Olympics - the athletes and events were unimaginably exciting, the chance to see obscure sports, to see the best in the world compete, to view world-class spectacle all commanded viewing. Even the losers were winners just by being there.

Now, not so much.
The TV boobs don't show much of anything. When they do show something, it's filtered by jingoism. The non-American winners are ignored, the Americans are alternatively fawned over or tortured by inane questions. The Olympics are reduced to a bad soap opera.

I think I'm averaging a half hour per night, if that.
Good job, NBC. You've killed the golden goose and smashed all the eggs.

---

IIRC NBC said Americans are not interested in sports, they are interested in reality TV...

If they didn't actually say it, they act like they did.

manus;842283704 said:

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...watched all the Ice Dancing performances

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That is the other problem with the Olympics. FAR FAR FAR too much coverage of judged events, and not nearly enough of actual sports.

AlbertaBear;842283738 said:

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Everytime the Olympics come around I am absolutely blown away at how poor the American coverage is. For a nation that is absolutely obsessed with athletics it is a joke how bad the coverage is.

As a Canadian, the CBC coverage is phenomenal. Every minute of every event is webcast in HD on the CBC website with the ability to watch previous archived footage and pause/rewind live footage. It's tremendous.

I keep waiting for Americans to put their foot down and demand an overhaul to how the games are covered in the States. I expect it will happen eventually but am surprised it still hasn't come.

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NBC is paying $777 million for the Sochi games, and NBC accounts for 61% of the IOC's Sochi broadcasting revenue.


As the article I linked to above points out, without NBC's money, there would be no Winter Olympics.


The CBC reportedly paid between $75 million and $80 million for the Sochi *and* Rio de Janeiro games. (The CBC won't divulge exactly how much it paid.)

Let's say the CBC paid $35 million for the Sochi games, since the Winter Olympics are cheaper.

That represents less than 5% of what NBC is paying.

The CBC is paying so little they could afford to show Olympics coverage whenever they want, however they want.

NBC -- which broke even for the London games -- has no choice but to maximize its revenue by preserving the most scintillating stuff* for primetime, when ad rates are the highest.

(*Not all scintillating stuff is preserved. See the hockey thread. And when good stuff like a USA vs. Russia hockey game is shown live at a not-so-bad hour -- 4:30 AM to 7 AM on a Saturday morning isn't so bad -- many people don't watch it live anyway. See the hockey thread.)


The point is NBC is basically subsidizing your ability to watch the Olympics as you please.

Phantomfan;842283796 said:

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IIRC NBC said Americans are not interested in sports, they are interested in reality TV...

If they didn't actually say it, they act like they did.

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Yeah, most people just don't give a f*ck.

I used to give a f*ck when the Vancouver games were tape-delayed on the West Coast.

But I don't care. It's 11:53 pm on the West Coast and 11:53 am in Sochi.

If a big Olympic event is happening right now, I'd have to wait 20+ hours to see it on TV.

I also follow a lot of sports journalists in Sochi, and so I just can't get off Twitter.

I just don't care anymore.

People don't care anymore.

It is what it is.

Haven't watched at all and don't intend to. I doubt I'll watch next time either.

Though, I'd still like to go to one someday. Preferably not one in what amounts to a Third World country. I'm not really interested in spending thousands of dollars for an Olympic experience somewhere the water comes out of the faucet looking like urine.

KevBear;842283804 said:

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Haven't watched at all and don't intend to. I doubt I'll watch next time either.

Though, I'd still like to go to one someday. Preferably not one in what amounts to a Third World country. I'm not really interested in spending thousands of dollars for an Olympic experience somewhere the water comes out of the faucet looking like urine.

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You must be one of those dudes that only eats McDonald's when they travel.

Phantomfan;842283801 said:

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That is the other problem with the Olympics. FAR FAR FAR too much coverage of judged events, and not nearly enough of actual sports.

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Exactly. I know I'm in a minority, but any event where you get style points may be athletic but is not a sport. Sure, skating, diving, gymnastics, etc. are difficult enterprises in which the best athletes compete, but to me the true essence of sport involves objective individual competition: track & field, swimming, downhill racing, slalom, etc.

Snowboard cross is the best sport to watch for the wipeout factor. NBC knows what it is doing. Figure skating and real life dramas bring in ratings. Not for this crowd, but ask your mother what she is watching.

CaliforniaGoldenBear;842283675 said:

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Once upon a time...
I would be glued to the tube for the Olympics - the athletes and events were unimaginably exciting, the chance to see obscure sports, to see the best in the world compete, to view world-class spectacle all commanded viewing. Even the losers were winners just by being there.

Now, not so much.
The TV boobs don't show much of anything. When they do show something, it's filtered by jingoism. The non-American winners are ignored, the Americans are alternatively fawned over or tortured by inane questions. The Olympics are reduced to a bad soap opera.

I think I'm averaging a half hour per night, if that.
Good job, NBC. You've killed the golden goose and smashed all the eggs.

---

Yeah, but back in the day there were three channels, one baseball game on tv per week and the only variety was the hour of Wild World Of Sport; the Olympics were de facto unique. Not so much anymore and the coverage reflects it.

tequila4kapp;842283819 said:

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Yeah, but back in the day there were three channels, one baseball game on tv per week and the only variety was the hour of Wild World Of Sport; the Olympics were de facto unique. Not so much anymore and the coverage effects it.

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Don't watch anymore that much either. The one good thing is U.S.never won alot of medals in the winter games but now does alot better

dajo9;842283815 said:

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Snowboard cross is the best sport to watch for the wipeout factor. NBC knows what it is doing. Figure skating and real life dramas bring in ratings. Not for this crowd, but ask your mother what she is watching.

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Exactly. For every one person on here wishing we had CBC-like coverage, there are at least two people out there who prefer the NBC style (America-centric, more drama, more "emotion porn", America-centric, covering the highlights only, only certain sports, only well-known athletes, and did we mention America-centric?)

They're taking the average middle-aged housewife-in-Peoria viewer, who has a very America-centric view of the world and doesn't really care about the sports themselves, but just sees them as a vessel for mushy human interest stories. And they're giving us that person's view of the Olympics.

I actually heard a former junior producer discuss how the goal was to make the coverage as much like a Hollywood movie as possible, one where you have your good guy protagonists (the big-name U.S. athletes) and the bad guys, whose only reason for being part of the whole thing is to act as as a "plot complication" in the good guy's story.

Could be worse. Imagine if Fox covered the Olympics.

bearister;842283744 said:

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"Klammer was never an elegant downhill skier, his focus was speed and victory. In his descents he appeared at times to be dangerously off balance. In spite, or perhaps because of his unique style of skiing, he was able to consistently dominate a field of gifted competitors." [Wikipedia]

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I had just learned to ski in 1976, and Klammer's downhill was the first I'd ever watched. Ever Olympics since, I watch the downhill, but it never quite lives up to my expectations -- I think Franz Klammer ruined it for me.

During the first week, every time I turned on the TV they were showing x-games stuff. Men doing flips on snowboards. Women doing flips on snowboards. Men doing flips on skis. Women doing flips on skis. For chrissake give it a rest. I know they're fantastic athletes doing the impossible, but it's freaking repetitive.

pierrezo;842283735 said:

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Ugh! I saw this too. She asked a question about Bode's brother, he started tearing up, then she went in for the kill and reduced him to a puddle of tears.
Anything to create drama.

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He's a grown @ss man, I'm sure he'll be okay. And it did make for the most compelling moment of these winter Olympic games that I have not paid much attention to.

And who can forget the great Bill Johnson, the first American male to win alpine Gold, evoking Joe Namath by predicting a win, pissing off the Europeans, and coming away with Gold with his spectacular 1984 Sarajevo Olympic downhill run?

I can't figure out when events are. I really wanted to see the Jamaican Bobsled team and now I may miss them entirely.

KoreAmBear;842283869 said:

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I can't figure out when events are. I really wanted to see the Jamaican Bobsled team and now I may miss them entirely.

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NBC showed (and interviewed) them last night.....

Does anyone remember a time when the Olympics were not about what will go wrong, and how terrible everything is, but about the Olympics being great coming together of nations?

I think my biggest issue with these Olympics is the non-stop every-thing-sucks story line.

CaliforniaGoldenBear;842283675 said:

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Once upon a time...
I would be glued to the tube for the Olympics - the athletes and events were unimaginably exciting, the chance to see obscure sports, to see the best in the world compete, to view world-class spectacle all commanded viewing. Even the losers were winners just by being there.

Now, not so much.
The TV boobs don't show much of anything. When they do show something, it's filtered by jingoism. The non-American winners are ignored, the Americans are alternatively fawned over or tortured by inane questions. The Olympics are reduced to a bad soap opera.

I think I'm averaging a half hour per night, if that.
Good job, NBC. You've killed the golden goose and smashed all the eggs.

---

It used to be easier to care about Olympics during the Cold War era when it was really about us versus them. Now, if US was playing against North Korea or if Al Qaeda had a sports team in the Olympics, I would be more interested. It is just hard to hate any country or root against athletes from any country. While I love our athletes and want them to win, hate is a lot more compelling than love. We just don't have enough hate in these games anymore. Yeah...that's what we need...more hate.

bearister;842283744 said:

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"Klammer was never an elegant downhill skier, his focus was speed and victory. In his descents he appeared at times to be dangerously off balance. In spite, or perhaps because of his unique style of skiing, he was able to consistently dominate a field of gifted competitors." [Wikipedia]

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calbear93;842283924 said:

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It used to be easier to care about Olympics during the Cold War era when it was really about us versus them. Now, if US was playing against North Korea or if Al Qaeda had a sports team in the Olympics, I would be more interested. It is just hard to hate any country or root against athletes from any country. While I love our athletes and want them to win, hate is a lot more compelling than love. We just don't have enough hate in these games anymore. Yeah...that's what we need...more hate.

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