Does NBC understand live sports programming! I guess not! I am extremely disturbed that NBC decided not to air “live” Michael Phelps 100m Butterfly race to tie him with Mark Spitz’s gold medal record.
There is no reason why, on a Friday night, that the network can’t give the Olympics to the West Coast at the same time as the east, especially for such a historic event.
NBC needs to give serious consideration to airing Saturday’s prime-time Olympic coverage live in all time zones. Phelps will be going for his record 8th golf medal.
Spoiler alerts: It‘s not fair that fans on the West Coast have to witness history three hours later than most of the country. ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS posted Phelps win on their ticker a minute after he won. I even got a text from CBSports five minutes after the record tying victory.
How silly is this? The fact that NBC is even considering not airing the race live on both coasts is ludicrous.
There is no excuse why NBC can’t go live coast to coast on Saturday. The 4×100m medley relay is scheduled for 11am Sunday morning in Beijing, meaning 11 pm ET and 8 pm PT, when NBC is airing Olympics coverage on both coasts anyway.
As a former television executive, I understand why NBC needs to squeeze every possible cent out of their advertisers and air as much coverage in prime time. They paid a ton of cash for the rights. However, as a fan of the Olympics and history, I can see huge ratings on the West coast if they would air record breaking events live. They would get double the exposure by replaying them again in primetime.
Oh well, I needed to get that off my chest despite being on vacation on the East Coast. Ha-ha! I will never forget where I was when Phelps tied the record. Unbelievable finish! Come on, a tenth of a second. He won by a finger nail. Nuts! West Coast fans will remember it scrolling across their televisions.
By the way, I am posting this blog around 11pm EST, and the West Coast has yet to see Phelps win his 7th gold medal. An amazing ending which even had some controversy.
Oh yah, ESPN SportsCenter just led their 11pm telecast with Phelps winning! East coast bias!
Whatever happened to live sports?!
written by Roc
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August 17th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
You must not have been following it that closely since there is no such race as the ‘50m Butterfly’. He won the 100m Fly on Friday.
And, as a former ‘Television Executive’, I am sure you can appreciate that the decision to delay was made as much by the affiliates as it was by the network.
After all, the rating are through the roof for NBC and the local stations are benefitting through the ad sales, local programming (O-Zone), and lead in to news.