Sochi 2014 Opening Ceremony: TV coverage, streaming, live updates and more

The opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi is here, but you’ll have to wait a few hours to watch it in the United States. The ceremony starts at 11 a.m. ET Friday, but NBC, which owns television rights here in America, will instead show it as part of its primetime coverage on Friday night. That coverage starts at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.

If you’re hoping to use the Internet to stream the opening ceremonies, that is a great idea! As long as you don’t live in the United States! Then it’s not a good idea! As Mashable explains, there are websites that will stream the proceedings live, but not to us:

U.S. viewers hoping to watch BBC or CBC coverage are also out of luck, as those stations are required to restrict streaming access to U.S. viewers due to broadcast rights.

If you’re a viewer in the U.S. who doesn’t mind waiting eight and a half hours to watch the ceremony, you can always watch the event on NBC when it begins. Canadian and European viewers will be able to watch the ceremony without a tape delay, so check your providers’ schedule to find out when the event will be broadcast.

Yyyyyyep. So how close do you live to Canada? If you’re near the border, you probably get CBC already. Otherwise you could always drive there and watch live. Nothing wrong with that, right? Don’t forget your passport!

At the very least, there’s always social media, and with the video and instant picture options available on there, if something amazing happens in the span of 6-10 seconds or so, it will probably get sent around. But sorry, America -- this is not going to be your day.

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