Poor Olympic Coverage.

rfarren

rfarren

New member
I'm a bit angered that NBC isn't showing the Men's Downhill live today. It's going on right now, and I can't watch it. Instead, I have to watch repeats of last night's moguls, and x-country. Frankly, this is a bit disappointing.
 
OH man!!! Cuche, just came up short! Miller has 6 more racers to worry about and then he is basically the bronze medal winner.
 
There are 30 racers left, but all the big names have pretty much gone. There could be a freak unknown who has a great run, but now it's just the waiting game.
 
rfarren":njm359lf said:
I'm a bit angered that NBC isn't showing the Men's Downhill live today. It's going on right now, and I can't watch it. Instead, I have to watch repeats of last night's moguls, and x-country. Frankly, this is a bit disappointing.
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You haven't paid attention to the last dozen or so Olympics. NBC never shows any of the 'big' events live unless it happens to occur in prime time. Otherwise they treat it like a taped sitcom to be shown later (but only the top 5-10 skiers and maybe 2-3 extra americans thrown in... etc...

Basically, I've never liked NBC's coverage of the Olympics in nearly any of the sports. As you found out though, in today's day and age you can nearly always find a web feed to bypass the TV guys now. And then they'll complain about not making money or getting good viewership ratings.
 
EMSC":v4wvg71d said:
Basically, I've never liked NBC's coverage of the Olympics in nearly any of the sports. As you found out though, in today's day and age you can nearly always find a web feed to bypass the TV guys now. And then they'll complain about not making money or getting good viewership ratings.
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Yeah you're right. I just watched the replay of the downhill. Wow, that coverage was miserable. They sucked the whole drama out of the event. It's a shame.
 
EMSC":2jtw5fnh said:
rfarren":2jtw5fnh said:
I'm a bit angered that NBC isn't showing the Men's Downhill live today. It's going on right now, and I can't watch it. Instead, I have to watch repeats of last night's moguls, and x-country. Frankly, this is a bit disappointing.
Click to expand...

You haven't paid attention to the last dozen or so Olympics. NBC never shows any of the 'big' events live unless it happens to occur in prime time. Otherwise they treat it like a taped sitcom to be shown later (but only the top 5-10 skiers and maybe 2-3 extra americans thrown in... etc...

Basically, I've never liked NBC's coverage of the Olympics in nearly any of the sports. As you found out though, in today's day and age you can nearly always find a web feed to bypass the TV guys now. And then they'll complain about not making money or getting good viewership ratings.
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Bingo...NBC or before ABC... pretty bad in my opinion. I haven't watch US coverage since I don't have cable anymore, but I found it always pretty US centric, regardless of what important sport event was happening. Best examples are when the US wasn't a contender. I guess, growing up Canadian, Canadian coverage couldn't focus where Canada could medals, because it was seldom the case in the 70s and 80s, prior to adding all the extra disciplines like Freestyle skiing, snowboading, Curling, Women Hockey, etc.

Oh BTW, I still think general Canadian coverage isn't good (thought I haven't watch much this time). For DH or other events I'm trying to watch, I just record the event at the time it's actually schedule on the Calendar and hope I catch it live. Sometimes it works, sometimes you end up recording 6-hours of Curling if the race is postponed.
 
EMSC":r7swwoos said:
You haven't paid attention to the last dozen or so Olympics. NBC never shows any of the 'big' events live unless it happens to occur in prime time. Otherwise they treat it like a taped sitcom to be shown later (but only the top 5-10 skiers and maybe 2-3 extra americans thrown in... etc...
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As bad as it's been in the past, this was by far the worst. It's bad enough that they skipped live coverage, but watching it in primetime was like watching a highlight reel. They showed a total of six racers, including Steve Nyman who, as much as I like the guy, never had a prayer anyway. And it took them 30 minutes to show the first four racers. At two minutes a run, that's eight minutes of ski racing, and 22 minutes of commercials and other filler crap. That's absolutely pathetic, especially for the marquee event of the Winter Olympics. Yet we'll get 200 hours of figure skating. :roll:

Major fail.
 
Admin":3bfwalm3 said:
As bad as it's been in the past, this was by far the worst. It's bad enough that they skipped live coverage, but watching it in primetime was like watching a highlight reel. They showed a total of six racers, including Steve Nyman who, as much as I like the guy, never had a prayer anyway. And it took them 30 minutes to show the first four racers. At two minutes a run, that's eight minutes of ski racing, and 22 minutes of commercials and other filler crap. That's absolutely pathetic, especially for the marquee event of the Winter Olympics. Yet we'll get 200 hours of figure skating. :roll:

Major fail.
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Trust me, it was much better in russian, streaming online in crap quality, where you could watch the whole event. Downhill is my favorite event for the entire olympics. The way they showed it took the drama completely out. What made it fun was how long Bode sat at the top, and then how long he stood at 3rd while the likes of Walchofer and Cuche went, and they just didn't show it. They also missed some great wipeouts including one by an american. Super lame for sure.

Seriously, how can people like figure skating like this? Any sport that requires judges, and have an art component is a joke. It's "dancing with not-quite-stars" on ice. It's entirely subjective, and it ain't no sport.

On a side note, there are some weird sports in the winter olympics (beyond the figure skating). I don't understand why the biathlon includes a gun. If I had it my way it would be the skiing sports minus aerials and halfpipe (I don't liked sports that require judges), the sled sports, hockey, and speed skating.
 
rfarren":ktzzzzj9 said:
If I had it my way it would be the skiing sports minus aerials and halfpipe (I don't liked sports that require judges), the sled sports, hockey, and speed skating.
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There are judges in Moguls too.

I don't think there are judges in biathlon. :stir:
 
Patrick":3s9fjatu said:
rfarren":3s9fjatu said:
If I had it my way it would be the skiing sports minus aerials and halfpipe (I don't liked sports that require judges), the sled sports, hockey, and speed skating.
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There are judges in Moguls too.

I don't think there are judges in biathlon. :stir:
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I know there are judges in moguls, and I think it's a joke. It should be a speed thing, and the lines should be longer so as to test the skiers ability in the moguls.

My issue with biathlon is the who shooting thing. I mean really, what is the point of that. I understand the idea of combining events, but that includes shooting a gun at a target. Why not make them just throw a snowball at a target. At least, that would involve some athleticism. :snowball fight:
 
Biathlon comes to the world primarily from Scandinavian countries where it was considered a critical skill to be able to ski long distances and then shoot accurately - as in militarily. Which has morphed into today's biathlon. And trust me, it takes incredible control to calm your body down enough to shoot accurately after going crazy aerobically in the skiing portion. Perhaps not the athleticism you prefer, but a skill none the less.

Not that I'm a fan of it exactly, but just pointing out that there is background for all of these things.

One of my biggest beefs of the games is half pipe competition. Where it's the best of several runs in the half pipe. How stupid. If they are so great of athletes why can't they do their run once? Bode nor Lindsey or etc.. get to take 2 or 3 runs to see which one works out best for them. Of course add to it that it's a judged sport too... Like some of the tricks, but not impressed with it as an Olympic sport.
 
Patrick":3dmwz3im said:
Oh BTW, I still think general Canadian coverage isn't good (thought I haven't watch much this time). For DH or other events I'm trying to watch, I just record the event at the time it's actually schedule on the Calendar and hope I catch it live. Sometimes it works, sometimes you end up recording 6-hours of Curling if the race is postponed.
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At least the Canadians knew enough to not cut away from the Lake Placid USA-USSR hockey game for a commercial. I was in Burlington VT at the time and flipped over to the Canadian feed. GOAL! Flipped back to the US feed. The pre-empted the commercial and did a "look at what you just missed" replay.

I suffered through the Womens Moguls and Mens Moguls this year. I refuse to watch any more of it. NBC can't have my eyeballs. With 10 jillion cable channels and internet streaming video, I don't understand why you can't just see whatever you want live and catch the rest with video-on-demand.
 
I would argue that it is contrary to the spirit of the Olympic games to grant exclusive television rights to any entity in the first place. The games should be easily viewable live and for free by anyone.
 
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