A couple of my favorite Olympic moments are a few thatmost folks didn’t see. For instance, in 1996 I stayed up to watch the finals of
the men’s 5,000, which was shown live in Atlanta but long after prime time.
Then again, that’s how it is for track and distance-running fans—we’ll take
scraps and we’ll like it.
What was so notable about this particular race was that
American Bob Kennedy boldly dashed out from the pack running ever-so tactically
to take the lead in the race at the backstretch of the final lap. It was an insane
move by Kennedy not because he would quickly be swallowed up and passed by the
superior African runners, but because of the big ones it took for him to go out
there like that.
I can remember watching the race in the middle of the
night and yelling at the top of my lungs when Kennedy burst into the lead.
Actually, it was more like a girlish shriek and as soon as it sounded out it
was over because Kennedy’s surge was actually a wake-up alarm to the rest of
the field. But for a slight flicker of time, Bob Kennedy, the U.S. record
holder in the 5,000-meters, was the baddest runner on the planet.
Second to that was the gold medal basketball game between
the U.S. and Spain during the Beijing Olympics of 2008. If I recall correctly,
the game was one of the few that was shown in real time from China, which meant
it started at 1 a.m. in Pennsylvania. Since the U.S. was heavily favored, my
plan was to watch the first half or until the game was safely put out of reach and
then I would go off to bed. But that plan hit a snag when the game turned out
to be just too darned entertaining.
So instead of sleeping I was wide awake and riveted by
how the Spanish team countered every run and stand by the U.S. team. Then I
found myself doing something I never thought I’d do…
I cheered for Kobe Bryant.
I couldn’t believe it either and I immediately picked up
on the hypocrisy of it all. If this were an NBA game on any other night of the
year, I would reflexively root against Kobe. Who wouldn’t? He said all those mean
things about Philadelphia, rooted for the Mets as a kid and the Dodgers against
the Phillies, and pretty much is the most arrogant and biggest jackass in sports.
Plus, as rightly described by Bill Simmons, Kobe was like the wolf from the
movie Teen Wolf, who took all the
shots and made teammates feel worthless. Truth is, one of the times I was most
proud of the Philadelphia sports fans was when they booed Kobe as he hoisted
the MVP trophy from the 2002 All-Star Game at the Wachovia Center.
Yet there I was at 3 a.m. rooting for Dwyane Wade to get
the ball to Kobe in a spot where he could score for the red, white and blue all
while wondering why someone didn’t pick up Spain’s guard Ricky Rubio and heave
him into a trash can on the concourse.
Make no mistake—it was a blast. As a sports and Olympics
fan, part of the fun of it is waiting all day for the game/meet/match and
adjusting your life accordingly. If a game comes on at 1 a.m., well, by golly, I’m
going to be ready. That’s what sports fans do.
They want to see
what happens as it happens.
It seems like a pretty basic concept, right? Broadcast
the game when it’s scheduled. Simple. Uncomplicated. Who among us doesn’t
secretly enjoy those summertime west coast swings where part of the allure is
fighting sleep in order to make it through the middle innings?
For some reason the Olympics are no longer for sports
fans. This is nothing new, though. In fact, I’ve been beating this drum for as
long as this web site has been alive and I’m pretty tired of it.
If a network wants to stage an Olympics, stop being so
damned insulting to the sports fans. Please.
Yes, I know. It’s not about sports fans during the
Olympics… at least not in recent history. The truth is NBC must feel like sports—even
Olympic competition—was not enough. Real drama is pushed aside while the events
that are shown are more fake than the fireplace raging behind Bob Costas. Worse,
they chopped up the recordings of the events, edited out the nuance and
details, and presented them as it would an episode of “Friends.”
Look at how a compelling day of competition on Sunday was
presented. Instead of showing more of the Bode Miller redemption Olympics live
when it happened, NBC taped it, packaged it up and sprinkled it neatly between lulls
in the ice dancing competition during its prime time run. As a result of that,
the HUGE hockey game between the U.S. and Canada, one that was a trending topic
on Twitter hours after it had ended, was pushed to MSNBC. Never mind that a lot
of people don’t get MSNBC or that it isn’t in High Def in a lot of markets, the
biggest hockey game of the year was shoved off as if it were curling match.
According
to a story on Yahoo!, NBC says it bumped hockey because of American women.
Yep, women apparently live life with their heads buried in the ground and want
to watch ice dancing and other snowy events that
already happened hours prior instead of real-life drama. Oh sure, they say
that
But the NHL shut down its season for the Olympics, which
means it closed up shop for two weeks specifically for NBC. There are a lot of
dark buildings on a lot of nights over the next two weeks all over North
America because the players wanted the best athletes in the sport to show off
at the Olympics. So rather than promote the game by putting the biggest game of
the year on live where most people could see it, while chastising news
organizations for reporting things that
already happened.
Oh yes, this Internet thing just might get popular one
day.
Look, I’m not so naïve that I don’t understand why things
are they way they are. I get it. If they could turn a profit by putting color
bars on TV all day, they’d do it. Quality and merit don’t really matter these
days.
But that’s just mean. People work hard all day, they pay taxes on top of taxes.
They have mortgages and debt and not enough time to enjoy a day free from
stress. So rather than treat the folks (who don’t have the time to investigate
the truth, etc.) to something good, they get pre-processed scraps.
Not cool.
Hey, we’re sports fans and (in best Jim McKay voice) want
the unparalleled human drama that is only captured in the Olympics. Once every
four years athletes have a chance to capture immortality. Just think if the
World Series or the Super Bowl happened once every four years and then they
messed with it because it didn’t look like a dumb episode of a banal “reality”
show.
Worse, they can pretend like things didn’t happen like in
2008 in Beijing. When the rest of the world was fawning over Usain Bolt as the
true hero of the games and yawning over swimming, NBC went so far to black it
out… Chinese democracy style.
Actually, NBC chose to ignore most events in 2008 because
they did not fit into its broadcast plan devised way back when Beijing was
awarded the games in 2001. According
to a story in The New York Times, NBC and IOC chairman, Jacques
Rogge, worked together to finagle the schedule of swimming events so that they
could be aired during prime time in the United States. But before doing so,
Dick Ebersol, the president of NBC sports, had to run the plan the network and
IOC past one person:
Swimmer Michael Phelps.
When was the last time the commissioner of baseball asked
a player what time he wanted the games to start? How about the president of
ESPN or Fox checking with Jimmy Rollins to see what time would be best to put
the game on TV?
Answer: never.
So when Usain Bolt sprinted onto the scene and suddenly,
like lightning, became the face of the Olympics—the unadultered, non-sponsored
International star—well, NBC wasn't having that. To NBC, Usain Bolt did not
turn in the most otherworldly performances in Olympic history. He was a party
crasher. Didn't he get the memo that Michael Phelps was the star?
To knock him down a peg, NBC lapdog Jacques Rogge claimed
Bolt's celebrations were unsportsmanlike (Sally Jenkins of The
Washington Post nailed it). Costas waded into the fray, too, echoing
the IOC boss' complaints. However, when Phelps pounded his chest, flexed,
screamed and posed (nearly completely naked) after several of his victories,
they said nothing. Actually, Bob and the gang fawned all over their White
Knight and wanted you to do the same.
Please ignore that man running faster than anyone else in
history of the world. That has nothing to do with us. Y’know, almost like
hockey this time around.
There could be hope looming, though. NBC’s contract to
televise the Olympics ends after the 2012 games in London and ESPN is rumored
to want to buy in. Of course this is all speculation at this point, though it
was worth noting that a quote in a story from a person in the know the sports
network indicated that ESPN would produce the Olympic broadcast like it was a
sporting event.
That’s nice.
I imagine musicians get a complex when they are about togo into the studio and hear a recording of Jimi Hendrix. Jimi, as we all
learned in school, was a force of nature. He was like Mother Theresa and
Genghis Khan all rolled into one when he held a guitar in his hands. How can
anyone measure up to that, the musicians must think. Jimi was playing hard ball
and everyone else is just trying to bat it off a tee.
