As I sit here watching fireworks that fired off in a 12 hour offset, I'm thinking that the 2008 Olympics, the first summer games I've ever actively paid attention to pretty much sucked. It didn't suck because China was the host, or I felt that there was some form of preferential treatment/cheating going on (though that I dea has crept into my head), it's the fact that NBC did an abso-fucking-lutely horrible job covering the games.
From the opening ceremony to the torch's last moments, I've had the games on durning primetime nearly every night (background noise as we played with Molly, really), and during that time, I saw: a tiny bit of fencing, bicycling, swimming, biking, volleyball, diving, more swimming, more volleyball, more diving, gymnastics, more volleyball, more diving, more swimming, more volleyball, a bit of running, more volleyball, a moment of trampoline, more diving, more gymnastics, more volleyball, more diving, more volleyball, more volleyball.
In all, I'd say 80% of NBC's primetime coverage was volleyball. And I have no idea why this was decided as the penultimate sport to display. Sue and I were stunned at the beauty of the trampoline finals--why didn't we get to see more of that? And what about Judo? I didn't even see highlights of that. And Tae Kwon Do? All I saw was a brief highlight reel about the Cuban kicking a Ref in the head, on purpose--that should have been prime time front and center.
My wife's a former Junior Olympics medalist in discus. There wasn't any coverage for that--and an American took gold in Discus. Sue syas though that they never televise the non-running sports of track & field. That's sad.
I remember in the past there were special channels you could order for the games, so that you could see more things....Hell, I'd expect at least that NBC would devote most of the day to the games, but no. Daytime TV garbage reigns over Olympic awesomeness. Not only that, but it's sad that the games didn't start until Prime Time. We should have had 24/7 coverage with only breaks for the news. All the other shows are completely unnecessary. We only get the Olympics ever four years; why limit our experience even more?
The announcers also need to shut the hell up. Especially during the diving. That woman announcer, I don't remember her name, constantly criticized everything anyone did, and almost always under-scored the athletes' scores compared to the judges. These people are the world's best, I don't want to hear how they fucked up a tuck or left their feet straight. I wanted to be amazed by a prowress I'll never know. I don't need to hear nitpicky garbage from some announcer trying to fill the tv silence.
Commercials. I swear NBC orchistrated the Olympics footage to be actually less air time than commercial time. Seriously, they'd show two dives, cut to commercial. Show another dive, cut to commercial. I know commercials are quickly overruning our TV land, but they were especially bad during the Olympics.
So what did I like? The atheletes. Everyone who competed was fantastic. China did a great job hosting (although they really spent way too much money putting it all together (I hope they don't let their Olympic grounds fade into decripitude like Athens)).
Well Enough wining for me. Here's to hoping that London's Olympics get better coverage, less fucking volleyball and more diversity.
The good news is that now that the Olympics are over, I won't be watching anything except movies again. Ahh Netflix, you are my friend.
