Monday, February 22, 2010

Yes, this

NPR's Linda Holmes says it very well: NBC has no idea what it's doing.

If the IOC had any brains (and many would argue they've been missing said brains for a long time), they'd do whatever is necessary to yank the exclusive contract for US television rights and award it to a network that actually shows sports. In an era where people watch live sports on TVs, computers, phones, and who knows what else, NBC continues to show tape-delayed events. (Hey look, guys, isn't this cool? Who do you think will win ... how did you know? Was that on the World Wide Web somewhere? We've got to get that someday.)

I think we are rapidly approaching an era where broadcast networks are no longer equipped to show sports. (And a cheer goes up from the non-sports-fan contingent.) Don't laugh: I'm not the only one who thinks this. Notice what ABC and ESPN are doing? You've obviously seen that Monday Night Football is on "cable", and that didn't ruin the football universe. ABC is shifting more events to ESPN, including NASCAR events ... there are ABC affiliates in the South that are not happy with this, but I don't know that too many people care.

Unfortunately for the people who don't have cable and can't stream events, that's where things are heading. ESPN could cover the NCAA tournament 10 times better than CBS can, and CBS knows it: when they offered $1 billion for what I think was a seven-year contract to get the rights back after ESPN snagged the first-round games and did them superbly, they were doing it to protect valuable territory, just like NBC did with the Olympics, and just like the NCAAs have surpassed CBS' ability to cover them well, the Olympics have surpassed NBC's ability to cover them ... at all.

If some people are upset, you might be doing something right. If everybody's upset, you must be NBC.

1 comment:

  1. Ok...the best part of the post was the label. It cracked me up. Jesting aside, I did find that watching an entire live event on MSNBC was much better than the cut up versions on NBC. I guess that is why I can only watch the nightly coverage via DVR. It protects my valuable time and sanity.

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