Dear NBC: I Love the Olympics and I Hate You (Happy Valentine’s Day)
Hey, executives at NBC! You wanna be my Valentine? Really? Then Get Your Shit Straight!
Hey, I love the Olympics. I’m an Olympics junkie. I dig those sports that you don’t understand or didn’t know existed (no, I’m not talking about curling here).
I love biathlon. I’m crazy about ski jumping. Luge is awesome! And my favorite sport is bobsleigh (you know it as the bobsled).
Do you even know what the Nordic Combined is? I do. And no, an American will almost assuredly not win a medal there. So don’t expect NBC, or any of their family of networks, to give it a fair shake.
Two questions stand out: why do I love the Olympics so much, and why does NBC suck?
The first one is easy. As a child, I was a devoted fan of ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
Every Saturday, ABC took it’s viewers to some part of the globe to showcase a great sport, one that wasn’t basketball or football or baseball.
And when it was winter sports, I was happiest. Perhaps because I grew up in a small town in the South that didn’t get a lot of snow (hardly ever). Maybe it was because I had a seed of wanderlust planted in me at a very young age that made me want to explore the world, even if through a sports program on TV.
Most of the snow sports occurred in Europe when I was growing up. The alpine ski circuit was there, and so were the sliding sports and Nordic events. But what crystalized my fascination and love for winter Olympics happened in the United States in a pretty small town: Lake Placid, New York.
The 1980 winter Olympics were held there and it was magical. Yes, the U.S. Hockey team beat the Soviets (in the semi final … they still had to play and beat the Finns for the gold medal). But it was Eric Heiden who captivated me. Never had a single person won five speed skating events at the same Olympics. And it hasn’t happened since.
I’ve since been able to make the journey to Lake Placid. I’ve been in the arena where the Miracle on Ice happened, and even got to go down in a bobsleigh (my favorite sport, remember?).
But it was the outdoor (yes, OUTSIDE) ice track where Eric Heiden made his magic that captivated me most. The weather was sub zero thanks to a small blizzard that had blown through that January, but I still had to make my way onto the track, just to touch the ice.
I still get chills thinking about it.
But if the Olympics are so great, why does NBC suck?
First off, live sporting events in Asia present a difficult problem to viewers in the U.S., simply because of the time zone differences. I’m not banging on NBC for that, as they have no control over that.
NBC is using four of the family of channels to broadcast the Olympics in PyeongChang: NBC, USA, NBC Sports Network, and CNBC. Note, they have more channels at their disposal than just these four. Plenty more. They just aren’t using them.
So when I want to watch LIVE events, I might need to stay up late or get up early. I understand that. So at 5 A.M., I’m getting up with my wife. I immediately (OK, after coffee sometimes) crank on the TV to see the Olympics. Nothing on but Sweden vs. Switzerland in the women’s preliminary round.
WHAT?!?!?
The luge doubles were going on right then … for medals! They only make two runs in the doubles and the field is small. This is what I needed to see. Ski jumping … off the Large Hill (hells yeah!) not on either. Just a prelim hockey game.
(Nothing against Sweden, Switzerland, or women’s hockey … but again, it was a preliminary game!!!!)
I’ve been forced to watch many great events on my phone. The NBC Sports app has live Olympic coverage. Yes, they have the people there covering more than curling, hockey, figure skating, and snowboarding. They have cameras able to broadcast sports that [shock] don’t contain any Americans!
And when they are covering an event live? Guess what? They don’t have time to showcase Mikaela Shiffrin’s training regime or Shawn White’s feelings on his Olympic glory. They are showing other athletes’ Olympic glory!
Plus … and this might be hard on the internet generation that can look anything up: we don’t know who is going to win.
You can’t Google it because it hasn’t happened yet. A beautiful thing.
So get it together NBC. Call it a Valentine’s Day promise to your viewers. Start putting some live events on all those channels you own and leave the fluff pieces for true downtime (alpine skiing delays, anyone?).
You can do it. I know you can. I’m seeing great stuff on my tiny phone screen instead of my gorgeously large TV. And my TV is craving for great Olympics as much as my wife is craving for some Valentine’s Day dark chocolate.
Let’s make it happen, NBC. I’m counting on you. Give me your address and I’ll mail you a bag of those little hearts with cute messages on them. C’mon, you know you love getting those! Alright, I’m done. Go make those programming changes and I’ll call it my Valentine’s Day present.
Your bonus for reading to the end:
OK and for those who watched the ABC clip above, I have a bonus for you: a little info on the Yugoslavian ski jumper that became the epitome of “the agony of defeat.” Enjoy!