Functionally ReTodded

And more specifically, NBC’s coverage of the Olympics.

I was riding home yesterday and listening to TC&RS. (For those that don’t know, that’s The Cindy & Ray Show on Star94 here in the ATL. I know it doesn’t sound manly, but there aren’t many options in the afternoon. Sports talk is “The Stews,” 96rock sucks ass every second of the day that the Regular Guys aren’t on, The River 97.1 is 96Rock but up one on the dial, and the rest is just drive time crap. And I’m man enough to admit it, so just pipe down already.).

Anyway, yesterday’s “what to the listeners think” question was “Why aren’t you watching the Olympics?”

That’s an interesting question. They didn’t ask “What do you think of the Olympic coverage?” or “Are you watching the Olympics?” They asked “why are you NOT watching the Olympics?”

(Despite paying a Go-jillion dollars for the rights, I don’t think the Olympics EVER pays off for NBC, or at least the Winter Olympics don’t. According to the USA Today,”Prime-time viewership for the first six nights of the Winter Games is down 36% from Salt Lake City in 2002, 17% from Nagano in 1998 and 44% from Lillehammer in 1994.”).

So, the question was “Why am I not watching the Olympics?”

My wife and I have discussed this at great lengths this year (and at not so great lengths), and I think I’ve got a couple of answers.

Before I start though, let me mention my fundamental belief that the Winter Olympics aren’t really Olympic events. They should be called “The Winter Exibitions” or “The Winter Competitions” or maybe “The Goodwill Games.” But to me, the Olympics are all about the Summer games and competitors being faster, stronger, etc. Show me running, swimming, track and field, wrestling and weightlifting, and that’s the Olympics. Tennis isn’t Olympic, and neither are equestrian events or beach volleyball.

Having said that, and assuming that there will continue to be Winter Olympic Games, let’s just focus on them.

The first problem with the Winter games is that it’s almost like little sports vignettes stuffed inside of a bunch of Barbara Walters/Oprah Winfrey sob stories. I’m not being mean here (or at least I’m not trying to be mean), but why does every story they run have to be tragic, sad, or just plain depressing? I mean, why not run a profile on Shawn White (who has KILLED this year at the Olympics and the X-Games) and show how nine months out of the year he’s just snowboarding, eating junk food, sleeping in late and smoking dope with his buddies and laughing at how much money he’s making at his age? Kind of like the Olympic version of MTV’s “Cribs.” I’d watch THAT in a second.

Secondly, the tape delay thing is absolutely ridiculous. This isn’t 1976. The internet and cable news and sports channels and sports talk radio make it impossible for me to get thru the day and not know what’s transpired. NBC acts like the earth is flat and that we somehow don’t already know everything they’re going to show us.

Remember the Miracle on Ice in 1980? That game was actually played in the middle of the day and that was here in the States. But thanks to no internet, they could pull off that shitty move and act like it was live. No more. Just cruising any old news site will give me a medal count in one corner and a crawl across the bottom telling me who just won in the biathalon, so I don’t actually sit at work all day pining for your coverage and for you to enlighten me. I just don’t.

Thirdly, I’m not stuck with only three channels to watch and waiting desperately for you to start your coverage. I don’t have even have satellite tv and I still have over 250 choices to watch besides you. If you want me to watch, give me something worth watching.

But the biggest reason I (and I suspect 85% of the other heterosexual male television owners in this country) don’t watch your crappy Olympic coverage is because of one overriding factor:

ICE SKATING!!

And I don’t mean speed skating. I mean figure skating, in any form, in any combination and at any time.

See, every night you show us 45 seconds of luge or curling or bobsled or hockey (or relegate it to CNBC during the day live) and then you show us 20 minute biographies of one gay man after another talking about his dreams that involve wearing tights and makeup and carrying a purse.
And would you like to know why we, the American male (and some of our enlightened female partners) don’t like figure skating?

BECAUSE IT’S NOT A FUCKING SPORT!!!

You can sell it and package it however you want to, but it’s not a sport. Period. To be a sport, it must have a scoreboard or a finish line or a clock / time to beat or a clear victor (i.e. speed skating, biathalon, etc.). What you have is a demonstration or an event.

Any event whose winner is decided by a scoring format that is 45% content and 55% opinion is nothing more that political bullshit.

Example: The other night, a couple finished 8th in the short program (which is a misnomer because it is most certainly NOT short), and they were thrilled. They clearly outskated everyone else and should have been, at worst, in the top three, but they were 8th. Why? Because there is a pre-olympic order where these teams and skaters are ranked, and everything runs thru that. You could never have a “miracle on ice” in figure skating, because the 30th best figure skater could never ever even win a medal, let alone a gold one.

So you see, NBC. It’s really not that tough. To get people to watch, you have to show something worth watching, and not just in 90 second pass throughs. Showing an entire hockey game or speed skating event would rule.

But why would you do that when there’s some russian chick skating to Revelle’s Bolero?