…And they were doing so good. NBC, which has offered unprecedented live coverage of Swimming and Beach Volleyball (as well as 17 other sports live online), is dropping the ball with Track & Field. The coverage of the woman’s marathon, shown live on the east coast tonight, was fantastic: nearly start to finish live coverage of what was an exciting race. Yet the 100m dash occurred over twelve hours ago and NBC is pretending like we don’t know what happend. I mean, the Chinese government doesn’t even censor the airwaves this diligently. Why not show the races live in the morning and then show them again in primetime with all the “enhanced” coverage NBC thinks adds so much value? We’ve reached an era in sports broadcasting where the only value is showing things live as they happen. Imagine if the Super Bowl was held in Beijing (okay, this metaphor begs a lot of other questions… but still), we’d just watch it in the morning instead of tolerating a 13 hour delay, right?
By Ryan Quinn
7 responses so far ↓
1 Jim Buzinski // Aug 16, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Totally agree. The 100m started at 10:30 a.m. EDT and would have drawn a large audience, and those that missed it could have watched it again at night. Unfortunately, this will be the norm the rest of the way for NBC. I envy other countries who see sports as they actually happen.
2 canmark // Aug 17, 2008 at 9:29 am
It was embarrassing to see NBC running these promos all afternoon: ‘coming up this evening… the men’s 100m!’, meanwhile every sports and news website, and every sports and news TV program had already shown the short (less than 10 second) race. And I wonder, too, if an American had won the race, would they still have held the coverage back?
3 Ryan Quinn // Aug 17, 2008 at 11:59 am
The more I think about this the more insane it is (again, I’m sitting here fuming this morning while the men’s 1500m semis and the 10,000m final are happening RIGHT NOW, and NBC is showing me more replays of Phleps!). The World Cup, Wimbledon, the French and Australian Opens, golf’s British Open, the Tour de France – NOTHING is tape delayed except for the Olympics. This used to be excusable when the newspaper was the only other way to get sports news, but now it’s embarassing. I hope in four years we finally will have moved into the 21st century.
4 Bob Ballard // Aug 18, 2008 at 12:14 am
I’m here in Beijing working for the BBC and we’re offering six choices of coverage at any one time. It would be unthinkable not to show the 100 on the track live in Britain…I understand NBC were showing Basketball, and it’s not even the medal round yet. The whole reason why swimming was changed was for NBC (stands for No Body Cares) and most of that was time delayed. I’m not saying we always get it right on the BBC, many people will say we don’t, but I hope we don’t portray a feeling that we OWN the Olympics. Looking forward to commentating on Mr Mitcham tonight.
5 J. Willoughby // Aug 18, 2008 at 10:05 am
The NBC coverage is beyond miserable. I’m sorry but I can’t help thinking that it’s because the Americans are not dominating the track like in previous Olympics. If it were when Carl Lewis etc were running, everything would be live. They don’t even have the decency to run the 100 m for men and women EARLIER in prime time. They are showing the finals at nearly midnight!
6 Kelly // Aug 18, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I live on the west coast and I have rarely even watched NBC - the best LIVE coverage has come from CBC up in Canada. They show the sports live and don’t tape delay it or wait for “prime time.” Thank you to the Canadians!
7 Adam Z // Aug 20, 2008 at 10:42 am
I was hoping NBC would gfinally get it right and show Usain Bolt live in the the 200m final…instead they were showing Al Roker talking to some BMX “athlete” on the Today Show… what a disgrace. This is simply unbeleievable that the first athlete to win Gold in both the 100m and 200m in 24 years and oh by the way, set two world records, is not shown live!
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