As I keyboard this, there are several events in progress according to the schedule. These include equestrian jumping (individual final) and women’s gymnastics parallel bars, both awesome to watch. But the only event NBC is showing right now is women’s field hockey, China v. Japan. That’s on MSNBC. On NBC they were showing some blond lady mixing popular British cocktails.
Yes, you can catch some events via live stream, but it’s hard to watch a live stream and work on a computer at the same time. Plus the live stream hangs up a lot.
I shouldn’t complain, as I ought to be working and not watching sports. But one does wonder what genius at NBC is deciding what they broadcast.
They do show a ton of “fluff”. D*mn shame they always seem to land the Olympic broadcasting rights. Last night, there was a 10 minute piece about kilts. Yes, kilts. If they do a Lady Di retrospective, I’m shooting the TV, like Elvis.
Ryan Seacrest ? Gimme a break. Costas is bad enough. Enough fluff to choke a hippo.
Showing something that doesn’t include Americans is some progress. (Yes, I know I’m exaggerating a bit.) Every time I’d have a chance to watch, they were showing beach volleyball, so finally I just kind of gave up.
Lynne, yeah, they’re obsessed with beach volleyball. That was my gripe during the Beijing Olympics, too, and it was especially stupid because just about everything they showed during the daytime here had already happened. It seemed like every time I turned on the TV they were showing beach volleyball. They’re still showing just about every one of the women’s beach volleyball matches, it seems, while completely ignoring other sports.
I know I’ll hate the coverage, so I don’t bother watching it.
Besides, I really don’t care anymore.
All it is, is one commercial after another. And pity the poor schmuck’s who, after filming a commercial weeks or months ago, doesn’t win gold, and that ad never sees the light of day. I hope they cashed that check before they left for London.
At least it was fun when our, ostensibly, amateur athletes went against the Communist’s “amateur’s.”
And though I hate rooting against America and Americans, it’s easy to do when it’s our Basketball team.
FSM, they can’t lose fast enough for me.
Well, IMO, the whole point of Olympics basketball is to watch the U.S. team mop the floor with some other team. Yesterday the women’s basketball team made China wish they had never heard of basketball. The final score was 114-66. Yay, women’s basketball!
Actually, I’d probably be more interested in the “proper British cocktails”. But, since I killed my TV, I guess I’ll have to hope for the recipes to go viral.
Fencing was my sport, but, it’s a lot more fun to do than it is to watch. I thought about starting a senior amateur fencing league, but the only other guy who was interested kept getting tangled up in his oxygen hose, especially in sabre competition. The guys from EMS weren’t very encouraging either.
Do you get points for cutting an oxygen hose with a sabre?
I read wags on Facebook wondering why NASA can get video from Mars in 14 minutes, but it takes NBC 8 hours to get it here from London.
My sense is the algorithm they use to decide what airs is: 1. Glamor sports saved for Primetime, 2. Are Americans expected to do well? 3. Are there hot babes in bathing suits? 4. Do we need something else to fill time around the first 3 categories?
Otherwise, they default to their usual programming behavior, and go with whatever they think will sell commercials.
I was amazed on Friday night after Maddow, when MSNBC when to its usual “Prisons” block, instead of dropping some random sport in, just because they had it. I’d have stuck around to watch Womens’ 10 M Blatherskite, or whatever.
And, predictably, FOX “News” kvetches that our Olympic outfits aren’t patriotic enough:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/fox-news-team-usa-uniforms-patriotic_n_1746519.html
Yes, we’d clearly be doing better if our athletes had stars and stripes on their asses.
JAYZOOS!
You can’t make people like this up.
Boy, I have to agree with all the comments above! I never realized beach volleyball was such a popular sport! (Note here in the middle of the country, apparently.) After all the furor about the Romney’s horse, I thought they show some equestrian events, but, as in past olympics, they show almost none or very short pieces before going back to volleyball! And I love the equestrian events. So how do you get it
I wasn’t finished; guess I hit the wrong button. I wanted to know how you get the equestrian events live streaming?
I’ve found them through my cable provider.
Chanel 602 on DirectTV has different Olympic sports, too. Sometimes Bravo (237 Direct) has sports, but by no logical pattern. And the regular NBC affiliate here has Olympics.
As many channels as exist, I don’t see why they can’t have 4 or 5 sports on at all times live, and just let the less-enthusiastic watch the evening tape-delayed program, which is probably only being viewed because they’re home from work and dinner is over. They’d have more ads to sell and a bigger total audience. Plus, they could even get some enthusiasm among those who can watch from work.
I am enjoying this conversation! Goatherd, you win the gold for the funniest comment.
For five bucks I got a proxy from Tunnelr.com and watched gymnastics on BBC, but it hangs a lot. So I guess I just don’t get to see the Olympics. That’s a shame. It should be there for everyone. NBC are D*ckheads.
I agree beach volleyball sucks big time and watch other things when it is on. Talk about delay, you guys have it easy compared to us on the West Coast. Everyday I find out way too early who won, any controversy, etc. For the Winter Olympics, which I like better anyway, I will not be on the internet at all because I prefer to watch the contests as though they were live. There was a big article somewhere about NBC covering only the sports with skimpily clad women in hopes of raising the ratings. Sexist pigs. I know the channels that are carrying the Olympics and just check them all numerous times during the day (of course, I am retired) and have found most of the horse riding, jumping, dressage–although twice it was 3 a.m. I have pretty much seen all the events I really like; but, it has been work. I find Mary Carillo’s late night show to be the best in obscure events such as badminton last night. I hate NBC’s coverage, too; but, it is the only game in town. NBC has quite a monopoly on sports coverage right now because they recently bought out the independent stations that were covering the Tour de France and other favorites on mine on the Universal Sports station. Then, they got into a spat with Comcast and now Universal Sports disappeared. There ought to be a law against that . . .