Every two years just about, some folks get up in arms about the Olympic coverage being on tape delay. It’s mostly a function of Twitter, which is important to remember, but all the same folks get annoyed and upset that they can’t watch the Olympics live.
Stop worrying about NBC’s Olympic tape delays and just enjoy the show
I’ll take my Pyeongchang coverage in neatly packaged nightly portions, thank you very much.
Photo credit should read SEAN M. HAFFEY/AFP/Getty Images
The concept of tape delay in a 2018 world seems ridiculous given the plethora of apps we have at our disposal to watch live sports wherever and most importantly whenever we want. NBC heard those pleas and you can watch whatever event you want whenever you want, but it won’t be the polished NBC version of things unless you’re watching it during the peacock network’s broadcast windows.
I gotta cop to this: I really like the Olympics being presented as a television program more than a hardcore sporting event.
When the opening ceremony airs on Friday night, it’ll be what you’re used to seeing. A host, Mike Tirico, emceeing the Parade of Nations with cutaway segments and graphics and the like.
That’s, uhh, not how it was presented on the live feed if you woke up early Friday morning. That was a no-frills version of the telecast with only in-stadium audio. If you were passionate enough about the Olympics to early rise and watch that, then more power to you.
If you’re like me, then you’re content to wait to watch it in prime time because you’re not that hardcore of an Olympics fan anyway. Personally, outside of the one sport I cover (college football) and the other I’m a game-in-game out fan of (soccer) I’m more into the big events when it comes to sports. Most of those big events — NBA Playoffs, Super Bowl, World Series — are situated at night because they happen in America.
Look yourself in the mirror and tell me you care about a majority of these Olympic sports at any other point in time in a four-year span. Hey guess what, that’s OK. Curling’s popularity during the two-week span has to do with its exclusivity. It’s one of the reasons football is the behemoth it is today. It goes away for eight months out of the year. Curling exists in anonymity for three years and 50 weeks.
The opening ceremonies and gold medal events are just that: events.
A big criticism of watching anything tape delayed is that it would be a much better experience live. As a casual Olympics viewer I can either avoid results with relative ease or will probably still watch anyway because the events are fun and there’s little else on I care to watch. The humanistic stories are fun to learn, and even with the result having already happened, the Olympics are unique in the fact that for me it doesn’t really take the umph out of the event.
The way NBC’s handling it gives us the best of both worlds.
If you’re a hardcore Olympic junky then by all means enjoy waking up at 4 a.m. to watch pairs figure skating or whatever. But if you’re up to wait until the night window to watch what happened the night before, then you’re one of millions who will do so.
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