Bullpen Can’t Stop the Streaking
August 25, 2008Five Days…
August 25, 2008The Olympics end Sunday. They sure weren’t your father’s Games.
They were not mine, either.
My Olympics barely started. Track and field was shown by NBC a half-day late. Men’s and women’s basketball was on fairly obscure cable channels until the final games. Baseball was tucked away in the electronic wilderness. The Big Peacock home network was too infatuated with swimming, gymnastics and the bikini-clad titillation of women’s beach volleyball to show more traditional American sports.
Oh, Bill. Where do I start…
How about with a brief history lesson. While gymnastics was techincally created by the Greeks, swimming and volleyball are about as American as it gets. Not exaclty baseball and apple pie, but volleyball was created in the late 1800s in the state of Massachusetts. Competitive swimming was reportedly created after mimicing the Native Americans – now known as “free style.” I think it’s safe to say that these two sports would be considered “American,” but that is just one opinion. Feel free to disagree. Now, with that said…
There are plenty of people in my life who are nostalgic to a fault. It is simply one version of the many fans out there. I’m very accepting of that, though it is not a way I choose to view things. Browns fans, more than others, I cannot fault for reminiscing the old days when there were winning seasons upon winning seasons. I’d talk about the new regime, but that would be off point as we gear up for the 2008 slate. I also know of a few people who do not like the Cavaliers any longer, as it “isn’t as good as the Mark Price days.” Those people are just missing out to no fault but their own as we have one of the best players to every suit up in our own wine and gold.
But then you have a totally different group of sports “fans.” Those who refuse to succumb to the evolution of time. Typically, these people also take their VCR’s to get fixed, instead of spending considerably less money and buying a new one. Or, you know, perhaps investing in digital technology…the crazy fad that it may be.
They are the ones that revel in the days of ABC’s Wide World of Sports. And they’re also the ones that refuse to accept anything considered “extreme” like the X-Games, or even the emergence of Mixed Martial Arts. They do not understand that things evolve through time; sometimes for the better, others for the worse.
To be a bit upset that NBC did not broadcast baseball or basketball at ultra-prime hours is one thing. To not accept the fact that other sports have grown in terms of importance to a wide range audience is another.
In Livingston’s piece, he managed to not only put down the events of today, but also managed to be the last person aboard the sexism bandwagon (if you didn’t notice, beach volleyball players where bikinis. Oh, the horror!) while rehashing the racist comments of Don Imus from a year ago. The rare trifecta of old school thought. Those with the winning tickets can collect your purse at the window.
Do I think that Bryan Clay received entirely too little air time? For sure. In fact, he may have had more time during the Closing Ceremony pan-over than he did prior to those 25 seconds. And was I happy that the gold medal game was shown at 2:30am? Not especially, though I do understand the whole time zone issue.
But to say that the Women’s Gymnastics team and the beach volleyball tandem of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh got air time because they’re “cute?” How about the fact that they are amazing athletes? Believe it or not, there were several other female gymnasts and beach volleyball members that did not get air time. The names Nicole Branagh and Elaine Youngs are likely unknown to most sports fans even though they too were wearing bikinis and (wink, nudge) cover sand. If it was all about “titillation,” one would assume that these two would have been front and center, right?
May and Walsh have won over 100 consecutive matches, something that is relatively unheard of. They came strong with a background, stories that many can relate to, and then finished it off with a very decisive run at the games. The women’s gymnastics team was supposed to be a gold medal team, despite leaving with the silver. Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin received their air time, and answered with multiple medals in individual events. Other members of the team, clad in identical uniforms, did get as much prime time viewing not because of their looks – at least to my knowledge – but because of their abilities.
Look, I’m sorry that Terrance Brown and barrel jumping has been replaced by Shaun White and the half pipe. I’m sorry that Fedor Emelianenko, Anderson Silva and George St. Pierre have replaced the Leon Spinks’ of the world. I really am. But while I may be of the younger, more accepting generation, I do know that refusing to accept new things – while longing for the days of old – will get you nowhere. I have no idea how long these new events will be around, but what I do know is that I will be here to root for the superb athletes that participate in them, for their respective countries, and are damn good at doing just that.
Regardless of what they’re wearing…
11 Comments
Well, he is the Andy Rooney of our media market after all…
Scott –
I agree that Livington’s just an old codger who really doesn’t do anything anymore but bitch and moan like those two dudes that used to sit up in the balcony on the Muppets.
All that said, NBC’s Olympics coverage has always pissed me off. There is NO excuse for not airing everything, and I mean EVERYTHING live. If they want to then show it again during prime time, fine – but for those of us up at 1:30am who want to watch it live, it should be shown at that time.
NBC already has the rights to the 2012 games in London wrapped up, but I’m hoping ABC/ESPN wins the rights to the 2016 games – they’ve already promised live coverage of everything.
How Bill completely missed that Michael Phelps is now the SINGLE MOST DECORATED OLYMPIC ATHLETE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF TIME, SPACE, AND OLYMPIC SPORTS EVER EVER EVER IN THE UNIVERSE is probably the biggest oversight of his complaint. I mean, how dare NBC fawn over him as he set a record that will probably never be broken, and AT AGE 23 now has more Olympic gold medals than ANYONE??
Perhaps Bill also forgot that MOST OF US WORKING DURING THE DAY, WHEN THE EVENTS WERE ACTUALLY HAPPENING, AND DIDN’T HAVE ACCESS TO TVS TO WATCH BOLT BREAK THOSE RECORDS LIVE DURING OUR MORNING COFFEE. The fact that the swimming was on live in the evenings (in the US) at all was a fact lamented by most in the swimming community, as it completely altered the routines of most swimmers. It was like making NFL players all play their games at 7:00 just to satisfy some TV network suits. Perhaps Bill is too quick to forget the Sydney Olympics, and the doomed-to-fail “SIMULCAST” red, white, and blue channels NBC tried.
@AMC: Great Waldorf and Statler reference.
With that said, I guess it’s a matter of preference. As DP mentioned, showing things live would have meant an incredible decrease in viewers given the work day. I’m not opposed to the “live” argument as much as the failure to recognize a new group of sports being considered mainstream.
Well, and the other thing is: with so many things happening at the same time, it’s tough to broadcast everything live, all at once. In addition, there’s a tremendous amount of time during events between heats, etc., where nothing of importance is happening. I, for one, would rather have the network tape-delay some things in prime-time and edit out all of the superfluous stuff. If that means I have to stay off of ESPN.com and not listen to the radio in the car, so be it.
Bill’s right about the skimpy bikinis– the beach volleyball players should go back to wearing the formal tuxedos they used to play in back in the 1950s. So much classier then.
Great post Scott. I agree on all fronts. This nostalgic old view-point on sports is actually rather tiring from the PD. With the exception of Terry Pluto, all of the PD writers viewpoints are old and tiresome.
The PD and most other print media outlets are in a transition phase and looking at alternative ways to compete against online sources. I’ve been long wondering when the PD will take the next step in hiring younger, more ambitious writers with new, fresh ideas and voices. You’d think this would be the perfect time to start fresh.
For the longest time, the newspaper was where you went to hear the insiders viewpoint on your local favorite team. Now, with the internet and all, the bar has been raised for good journalism. The current cast of writers for the PD is doing absolutely nothing to attract a younger audience back to print media…
My main issue with NBC’s tape delaying is the following:
Since Usain Bolt broke the record in the 100 earlier this year, I was extremely pumped up to watch the Olympic coverage. Tyson Gay’s injury somewhat took away from that but I was excited nonetheless.
With the Internet it’s impossible to avoid hearing about things. When Bolt broke the 100m record around 10AM EST, it was in a giant red banner on CNN.com as breaking news (as it should be). I wanted to watch it. I couldn’t until NBC showed it that night. Thier coverage started at 8PM. Bolt was on around 11PM. They showed a bunch of preliminary crap and kept promising Bolt in 23 minutes. He came on about 55 minutes later.
I tried to watch the race on NBColympics.com that afternoon. Because of NBC’s stranglehold on the coverage, they wouldn’t air the video until they had already shown it live.
What’s even more frustrating for many is the fact that they show it at 8PM EST, but on the West Coast they delay it even longer until 8PM PST.
The delayed coverage of track and field angers me. They focused too much on some things and gave no coverage to many others. I know that Universal HD, USA HD, and MSNBC all had coverage early on, but they should continue thier coverage live on as many channels as possible to allow people to watch live. A 3-hour “best of the day” airing at night (when night = day in Beijing because of the time difference) would be a great compromise.
I hope that ABC/ESPN gets the coverage in 2016. I hope, I hope, I hope.
When I was little we would watch the coverage on CBC because it’s got much better coverage.
From a technology standpoint, NBC missed the boat bigtime. Their delivery of events was ok, except that it was steeped in proprietary technology. They also, seemingly, had watchdogs ALL OVER YOUTUBE issuing takedown notices. As a result, I STILL HAVEN’T SEEN THE CUBAN WHO KICKED THE REF IN THE FACE. Tell me something. If I actively want to watch a video of something controversial, why is it so hard to see an overly branded NBC version of this video? This is like putting DRM on MP3’s. You are only punishing your biggest customers.
CUT IT OUT. Take your video. Make it available. Make it searchable. Let people see what they want to see, when they want to see it. Like Big Brother. I don’t watch that show, but they have live web feeds all the time. They have uncensored latenight coverage on Showtime. They then produce a weekly show in primetime molding the storyline the way they want with producers managing the footage. Everyone gets what they want.
I am available to take the role of President of NBC before the London games. You know where to find me.
Well, in case in he doesn’t remember, I recommend that Bill forgo television approximately 2 years from now, around the winter time, and again in 2012, around the summer time. If he’s jones’in for some TV though he could always pop in some classics….I even found it in VHS:
http://www.amazon.com/Years-Olympic-Glory-Roger-Bannister/dp/6304016220/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&s=video&qid=1219689986&sr=1-23
However, I think they should bring in some less-respected games to compliment Handball. Tug-of-war anyone? Duelling pistols?
Livingston probably despises the internet and relishes hand-crank autos. He is on a mission to officially replace Bob Dolgan (defaulted his title due to retirement) as the most miserable SOB alive in the PD Sports Dept. Reminds me a Simpons episode of Smithers talking about heckling at “old Shibe Park”….