I have to confess my love of the Olympics. Summer and winter, it’s all good. Here are my reasons:
1. They provide welcome and much-needed variety from the same 2 or 3 sports we’re normally forced to suckle from the 6-network tit.
2. I’ve played a bunch of Olympic sports and I enjoy seeing how the very best play them.
3. Many of the athletes truly do it for the love of the game and make incredible personal and financial sacrifices because they don’t have high salaries or big endorsement deals.
That said, NBC makes the Olympics nearly unwatchable. And frankly, what’s making it unwatchable is how they pander to women to try to boost their ratings. NBC is already on record admitting it. And they’re insulting women in the way they do it by assuming women don’t care about actual competition but instead want to see the Olympics as reality TV. Here’s everything I hate about NBC’s approach to the Olympics:
1. It’s too US-centric. Look, I’m cheering on the USA as much as anyone, but when they show the entire US bobsled run on the way to a 32nd-place finish, and only mention in passing that “oh yeah, Germany won the gold medal”, it’s too much. I want to see the best, wherever they’re from.
2. Too much emphasis on the supposedly female-friendly “graceful” sports (gymnastics in the summer, figure skating in the winter). If I have to see one more figure skater – or the idiot commentators who are trying to make it all about them – this Olympics, I’m gonna puke.
3. Terrible human interest stories. Actually I’m OK with some of these, because like I said, there are some remarkable tales of sacrifice at the Olympics. But NBC tries to find the most touchy-feely things they can find, often at the expense of the athlete’s accomplishments. Case in point: Mikaela Shiffrin is 21 years old and is already being talked about as possibly the greatest skier EVER – male or female. And what angle did NBC go with for her human interest story? Her relationship with her mother. Yeah, let’s ignore the training time, the six hours a day she puts in at the gym, the falls, the injuries, and talk about how she gets along with her mom. Sigh.
4. Not enough focus on the analysis of the sports themselves. This is really important when you’re showing sports that most people don’t watch very often. For example, I’ve watched a ton of snowboarding during this Olympics, and I still have no idea what a double cork 1080 is.
5. Not enough coverage of certain sports to get a good feel for it. A 5-minute recap of a two hour biathlon race doesn’t really do it justice. But of course, we have to show the entire long program of every single f**king figure skater.
Sorry about the rant. I love the Olympics but I absolutely hate how NBC covers it.
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