Tag Archives: Olympics

ESPN Gets It Right

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There have been times in the past where I’ve called out ESPN for the stupid things they do, like showing a bit too much poker and putting the Westminster Dog Show as one of their top stories on ESPN.com.  At one point way back when I also called them out for having too many links to ESPN INsider stories, but not actually saying so as part of the link.  However, with all that said, I have to give them credit where credit is due.  They will be showing each and every game of the World Cup live on ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC.  Impressive how they can do this with the World Cup in South Africa, a mere 9 hours ahead of PDT, yet somehow NBC couldn’t figure out how to show the Olympics live on the west coast with all their networks… and the Olympics were ON the west coast.  Yeah, I know, I’m a bitter man.  I can’t possible give credit to ESPN with without taking someone else down, it’s just how it works.  :-)

Heard a great idea from someone who wish…

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Heard a great idea from someone who wishes to remain anonomous here on the blog. His idea was why don’t they just create C-SPAN type channels for the Olympics? The logic behind the idea makes sense. We don’t care to listen to the announcers anyway! This way we can watch all the sports live as we see fit. Then NBC, in their attempt to ruin the Olympics as much as possible, can create their “made for prime time” version for those of us that can’t watch the Olympics live. And why will this great idea never come to fruition? Because it just makes too much sense.

Looks like I'm going to have to scratch…

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Looks like I’m going to have to scratch CNN.com off my daily reading list for the next week+ (in addition to Twitter). CNN decided to use their front page to name the winner of todays womens downhill about an hour ago. So much for the excitement of finding out as a result of watching it tonight. I’m not sure whats worse, the NBC tape delay or the fact that I can’t read the news without finding out who won.

Since NBC decided to tape delay Olympics…

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Since NBC decided to tape delay Olympics coverage on the West coast, the same time zone as Vancouver, where the Olympics are being held, I’m going to have to take a 2 week hiatus from Twitter and other up-to-the-minute websites. How is it that the East coast gets to see what happens at the Olympics before the West? I’m really baffled!

Apparently I should be ignored

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Wow, I was apparently way off with my last post. NBC and their corresponding networks (i.e., USA, CNBC, MSNBC, etc.) have a pretty sweet set up going. I’m not sure if this is available on all cable/satellite providers, but Directv has an Olympic guide showing what is showing on their 10 channels with Olympic coverage. There are channels specific to Soccer and Basketball, both in HD. Now, I’m assuming with the time difference, a lot of this isn’t live, but at least they did a good job of splitting up sports between different channels. Apparently NBC does have a little common sense. And maybe I’m a little too quick to judge. Oops. :oops:

Olympics begin today

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Growing up I was always a big fan of the Olympics. Maybe I was naive (and I probably still am in many respects), but it was the one sporting event that wasn’t based on politics and money, for the most part. I’m not sure if this opinion has changed because I’m now older or because it just isn’t the case anymore, but politics and money seem to have taken over the Olympics. But that’s not the reason I started writing this post.

What I don’t understand is, with the immense amount of information available through the internet, why are the Olympics still televised via tape delay. The last things I want to do is watch some sporting event where I already know the outcome. So, I’ve come up with the Poulios.com method to televising the Olympics.

The basic theory is to make as many Olympic sports available to everyone, at no cost to the person watching on TV or the Internet.  In other words, no pay per view.  How can this be done?  Well, that’s what I’m here for.  Television rights for specific Olympic sports can be sold to different channels.  For example, NBC could have gymnastics, ABC could have basketball, Fox could have pool sports, and so on. Each station is required to have a certain amount of live coverage each day/night, somewhere in the 10-12 hour range. In the event there’s a large time difference based on where the Olympics are located, each station can run highlights during prime time, specifically for those people that don’t mind watching via tape delay.

Sadly, since I believe there is a lot of common sense used in developing this method, I don’t think it will ever happen.