I thought I'd get this rant out of the way before the season hits. Watching the Olympics in the US is no fun, because the only thing you can watch is Americans winning. You'd think the U.S. is the only country ever winning from the coverage. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for Americans to win, but I'm happy for other people to win, too. In fact, in some ways it's much more interesting when you have a diversity of folks competing and this is portrayed clearly in the coverage. It gets boring fast when all you can hear is the U.S. national anthem.
Growing up in Hungary, I remember watching all sorts of sports competitions - and I don't just mean the Olympics - where people from all over were taking home the gold. Sure, Hungary is a small country (population 10 million, that's like Chicagoland having its own team) and its athletes are only going to win so many medals so you could argue that by definition coverage would have to feature other competitions as well. But actually, for a small country, Hungary ranks very high on the all-time medals list (whoa, I actually had no idea how high before writing this post) so it's not as though there aren't opportunities to feature its own. Also, TV could just show less of the event if there were not enough Hungarian nationals to feature. But that's not what happens as featuring one's own doesn't seem to be the point. I remember hearing plenty of other national anthems and seeing lots of different flags.
I don't want to deny that there is some element of national pride here. But here's the thing: there are a lot of people in America, and a huge amount of money supporting professional athletes. That means that in most events that Americans enjoy watching, we have competitive teams. There's something of a chicken and egg problem, of course, because of course sports that Americans aren't particularly good at will be dull and not attract wide audiences. But mostly, the direction runs from the interest to the competence. The largest European nation is less than a third of the size of America, and therefore will have competitive teams in fewer sports.
Moreover, it's not entirely true that we only watch events we win at--the marathon is widely broadcast, and Americans basically never win that (though some of the winners are American residents). We also watch a lot of ski racing and luge during the winter olympics, even though Americans are generally outclassed by the Scandinavians and not infrequently by other European teams.
What you don't get is the elevation of obscure sports because someone might medal in them, which happens frequently in small countries. That can be kind of enjoyable--I, for one, love watching Olympic curling. But it's not really America's "fault" that it has medal contenders in most of the popular sports.
I do find American Olympics coverage annoying, because they spend too much time "humanizing" the athletes with sob stories. Call me insensitive, but I don't watch runners because their puppy died tragically when they were fourteen. I watch them because they can run fast, and that's beautiful.
Americans often medal in the shooting sports, but good luck finding US coverage. Of course, they're really boring to watch unless you're a shooter so you have some appreciation for what's going on.
Oddly, I had some German shooters wax poetic about the coverage of riflery during the 1996 Atlanta games. They went on and on about how much more exciting the "American" coverage was than in previous Olympics, because "Americans are really good at marketing" and "Americans are really good at TV" and the like. Considering that all of 6 people in the US saw that coverage on their sattelite reception of German stations, I thought that kind of odd.
your mom watches the olympics.
I haven't watched the Olympics for ages because of the focus on human interest stories. I want to see beautiful young people do amazing things and unless there is a really interesting story behind it, I don't want to know about it. Lance Armstrong overcoming cancer is a good story. More often, the best stories are in the games themselves: Abebe Bikila going barefoot in the Marathon; Jess Owens in Munich.
I'm predicting right now that we're going to hear a million human interest stories about the Hamm brothers and they're not even going. We'll hear them *because* they're not going.
I don't care about the Olympics and rarely watch the tv coverage, but I've seen it in the past. As a Canadian I can confirm that the American coverage is typically abysmal, much worse than the Canadian. The "human interest" aspect is worst, because it amounts to presenting transparently fake Horatio Alger narratives about the heroic journeys of the American athletes to where they are today. Any country's coverage will play up the events in which its athletes are strongest, so that's to be expected in the USA as elsewhere.
The human interest stuff is awful, but NBC wants to keep women who rarely watch sports interested. A woman who is a sports fan is going to be less interested in stories about someone running for his bombed out village in Kosovo than the casual viewer. I live outside Detroit, so I can pick up the Canadian feed, and in the past, they didn't do much of the tear jerker shlock.
he heroic journeys of the American athletes
I anticipate this year there will be plenty of stories about Chinese athletes with mood music done by the same guy who wrote "We are Siamese" for "Lady and the Tramp."
Germans generally gripe nowadays about too much coverage of the home team.
German media gripes about American coverage because the 90 percent of German journalists are Socialists, Marxists, and Greens griping about capitalism in American media. They like to lecture Germans and the world about the evil of not having a mandatory tax on television sets and radios so that government entities like the main public broadcasters, ARD and ZDF, can continue to dominate the airwaves.
The message is clear. If you don't pay your TV and radio "license fees" (taxes), your proud national public broadcasters will wither away in grinding poverty. Then you'll have to suffer through pedestrian, jingoistic coverage riddled with ADHD-inducing advertising breaks. Consider yourself warned, Johann Sechspack!
Of course, that will never happen, because the main political parties use those broadcasters and their governing boards as retirement homes for worn-out party functionaries.
I used to feel the same way, but then I learned it's not just American TV that favors the home country's teams. I lived in Beijing in 2004 and watched the games on an international cable service. We had Russian, Japanese, Korean, Australian, American, and Chinese channels. Every station favored its nation's teams. One day I noticed a soccer game between Korea and Japan; it was broadcast on TWO channels.
I used to feel the same way, but then I learned it's not just American TV that favors the home country's teams. I lived in Beijing in 2004 and watched the games on an international cable service. We had Russian, Japanese, Korean, Australian, American, and Chinese channels. Every station favored its nation's teams. One day I noticed a soccer game between Korea and Japan; it was broadcast on TWO channels.
Yes! Another curling fan!
A quote from George Orwell
"I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles."
http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/spirit/english/e_spirit
Count me as another that has completely abandoned watching the Olympics. I could not care less about the personal histories of the athletes, which, unfortunately, dominates the coverage provided by the network. I am hoping, probably in futility, that I can watch what I want on my brand new high speed internet connection without the "human interest" crap. Otherwise, this will be the third summer Olympiad in a row in which I watch zero minutes.
Honestly, I just don't see how any people in significant numbers are enthralled by the filler fluff the network puts on TV. I could understand doing it if you really needed to fill hours of programming, but the Olympics is a large enough competition that you can cover actual action almost 100% of the time, you just have to abandoned the idea that only the finals are worthwhile.
"Call me insensitive, but I don't watch runners because their puppy died tragically when they were fourteen."
You'd like less Olympic Puppy blogging, then?
My experience watching sports in small countries is that they obsess over their own as much as Americans do, and in a different way that is more intense sometimes. If you're Slovakia, the handful of Slovaks are an incredible and exciting national story, given the world stage. Proportionally, they will be feted and treated like greater national heroes when they return to Bratislava than any American medallist.
It's like how Brits pretend Tim Henman has had a chance at every Wimbledon since 1997 or so.
I'm irritated about how little fencing they show.
In 2004 they only showed womens' sabre, and only that because some Americans kicked butt.
-dk
I do find American Olympics coverage annoying, because they spend too much time "humanizing" the athletes with sob stories. Call me insensitive, but I don't watch runners because their puppy died tragically when they were fourteen. I watch them because they can run fast, and that's beautiful.
God, yes! I HATE the hours and hours of footage time wasted on some athlete whose "inspiring" grand daddy died tragically in an auto accident/of cancer or the female swimmer who "overcame" irregular bowel syndrome or such or the noble Darfuran victim expected to rank about 30th in the speed-walking 10K - which of course will not be shown in the medal round because they already spent 20 minutes on the Darfuran who came and went in the 1st round.
Another irritation is the limitless "hype" of some American contender "hope" in some BS sport you find they have no real medal shot in later. The overcelebrity of ex-medalist Americans unlikely to repeat, and the annointed "superstar" Americans picked for a range of dubious reasons like having a cool name (Apollo Ohno), or as if the prospect of them getting multiple medals somehow makes them uniquely interesting and watchable as they "guarantee" their medalling greatness.."I go for 4 golds!!"(big whoopy-doo!).
NBC appeared to have smartened up in Athens and Torino as it finally appeared to discover that people wanted to see the Argentine and Lithuanian B-ball players scrap away rather than just worship the losing USA "superteam", and put a ton of time into the great, thrilling Cross Country "war" between Norway, Germany, and Italy.
They could also do more with great unexpectedly close competition rather than just say the boxing match between the Cuban and Polish middleweight finalists was one of the best ever and show 3 seconds of the Pole kissing his medal. And rethink overcoverage of something like the US woman's soccer team...
I think the idea is that (supposedly) when people watch sports, they really just want to see celebrities or at least people they know. That's why, for example, during PGA broadcasts, the camera is glued to Tiger Woods much of time. This explains both the showing of home teams and "humanizing" the athletes. If they show just the event without context, it is just some random dudes in Speedos swimming fast. But if it is Michael Phelps than it is a different story! Go USA!
Who wants to watch the fascist olympics. They are a disgrace. Fuck the IOC and Fuck China.
Recent coverage of the Tour de France on Versus showed what coverage of a multiday sporting event should be like. Human interest drivel was kept to a minimum. Instead, the coverage focused on actual, you know, racing. In addition, there wasn't incessant nuthugging of the American riders, despite the fact that one of them was among the top five riders.
What Rob Lyman says about shooting goes double for fencing, which you frequently can't see no matter what odd foreign sports coverage you get. The US actually took a gold in '04 (shock!), and I still bet I won't be able to find it broadcast this year. But I won't be surprised. I think fencing is an extraordinarily graceful and exciting sport, but if you aren't familiar with it, it sort of looks like a couple of very clean teen slasher villains who bounce up and down for a while and then they poke each other and some lights go off and someone says something in French.
And - yea, curling!!
Hmm. That sounds alarmingly like a party I went to once...
if you aren't familiar with it, it sort of looks like a couple of very clean teen slasher villains who bounce up and down for a while and then they poke each other and some lights go off and someone says something in French.
1) Watching fencing is vastly more exciting than watching 3-position shooting (running target and skeet are more accessible)
2) Maybe the human-interest crap could be replaced with explanations of what you're seeing and some chalk-talk of great moments. I for one never understand all the weird strategy that goes into breaking away from the petalon (sp?) in road racing or the impenetrable motives of velodrome racers, and my knowledge of fencing is limited to what I learned in middle school.
What you don't get is the elevation of obscure sports because someone might medal in them, which happens frequently in small countries. That can be kind of enjoyable--I, for one, love watching Olympic curling.
Curling is awesome - my favorite winter olympics sport after hockey.
That said, contra Megan, I remember curling getting excellent coverage in 2006 - in part because the American men's team won the bronze medal - their first ever medal.
The women's saber team is the favorite for Gold, yet I bet we have to watch Olympic fencing on YouTube. The problem from a broadcast perspective is that unless you understand a little about right of way, you'll be totally confused about a lot of the scoring. (My son has fenced foil for several years and I still have a hard time following the action.)
Based on the TIVO schedule my daughter set up, it looks like she'll at least get to see a good bit of equestrian coverage, another sport where we don't really dominate. But then, horses sort of have a universal appeal I guess.
Al:
I think the comprehensive curling coverage in 2006 had more to do with the very attractive U.S. women's team, which was actually the team people were expecting to score a medal out of the U.S. men's and women's teams
If you really want to understand what makes NBC Olympics coverage such crap, consider:
The CBC broadcast the Opening Ceremonies live on over-the-air stations.
The Mexican broadcaster (I don't know which of the two networks it was) broadcast the Opening Cerermonies live on over-the-air stations.
NBC, despite having nine channels on my digital cable system (over-the-air NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen, USA, Telemundo, Universal HD, and two dedicated Olympic channels) did not broadcast the Opening Ceremonies live.
The same will happen across the actual events. Despite having nine channels to put things on, it will consistently fail to put much of anything on live.
Despite having nine channels to put things on, it will consistently fail to put much of anything on live.
This suggests that they could use some of those nine channels to send out fluff-free programming, and leave the fluff in on other channels for people who like it.
I suspect that there is one additional phenomenon going on: because of the size of the US, American's compete successfully in lots of obscure sports, too, and if you're an American broadcaster, you kinda have to cover it. That just doesn't leave much time for much else.
I for one never understand all the weird strategy that goes into breaking away from the petalon (sp?)
A small group of cyclists that breaks away from the peloton hopes that the field waits for too long before it tries to catch up to them. And if they are not successful at least their sponsors get more air-time.
A lot of NBC's coverage is absolutely horrible. They do not explain the more obscure sports well and they spend way too much time on the human-interest stuff.
However, I do not understand people complaining about the lack of coverage of obscure sports when NBC is airing over 2000 hours of coverage on their various channels and even more coverage online. The main problem with NBC's coverage is their NBC prime time broadcasts. The other stuff is pretty good, and they have a good website that explains the rules and scoring if you need a primer.
I like watching equestrian and water polo, and will be able to watch plenty of both. I also got to watch large amounts of curling during the winter olympics.
NBC's coverage if you do not have cable or broadband is frustrating, but with either it becomes pretty good.
What Kineslaw said - I think people may have outdated notions of how NBC covers the Games. Recently they do a lot less 'up close and personal'-type stuff than in the past and they do a pretty good job of highlighting who the important non-U.S. players are, too.
With all the channels devoted to the Games plus the web, they will in fact broadcast/stream a ton of both obscure sports and a whole lot will be live. You can watch the world feed online sans fluff for tons of sports. The abovementioned fencing fans should be able to get their fill online, for example.
That said, fan favorites like gymnastics and the marquee track and swimming events, plus opening and closing ceremonies, are being held for prime time (although many of those finals at least will be live for east coast fans). NBC subsidizes the IOC (and other countries, for that matter) to the tune of nearly $1 billion for U.S. rights.
The largest European nation is less than a third of the size of America, and therefore will have competitive teams in fewer sports.
Do you actually believe that a country of 100 million people can't field competitive teams for as many sports as a country with 300 million?
I disagree. I've trained with a few Olympic athletes, and I've found their unique experiences are often just as captivating as their exceptional abilities. Forget tragedies for a moment (since that makes up a small part of this persoanl coverage). What about motivations, recent athletic performances, rivalries, etc?
Besides, if we took out the context and athlete history, you end up with coverage that looks just like a world championships...and when was the last time anyone watched one of those for small market sports? Same athletes, same sports, zero ratings. The indoor T&F championships I've attended in North America have been in front of empty stadiums. Personal stories may not appeal to everyone, but the reality is that when you take them out and the Olympics just won't sell.
We like to watch things we know. We're generally not very interested and start thinking "boring" when we're watching two teams/individuals etc who we don't have any shared background with.
Which is why I can be bored out of my mind watching soccer, but someone in Europe watching the same game is on the edge of their seat moments away from rioting and burning cars.
The human interest isn't necessarily to make a sob story out of the athlete, but to make you want to pull for and root for that person. Make you want to follow them through the action. See how they did in the standings, etc.
It generally works. The problem is when it's done so often it becomes a formula and the viewer sees through it like "oh here's another human interest story..."
We like to watch things we know. We're generally not very interested and start thinking "boring" when we're watching two teams/individuals etc who we don't have any shared background with.
Which is why I can be bored out of my mind watching soccer, but someone in Europe watching the same game is on the edge of their seat moments away from rioting and burning cars.
The human interest isn't necessarily to make a sob story out of the athlete, but to make you want to pull for and root for that person. Make you want to follow them through the action. See how they did in the standings, etc.
It generally works. The problem is when it's done so often it becomes a formula and the viewer sees through it like "oh here's another human interest story..."
I can understand the selectivity of what's broadcast, but is it too much to ask that NBC put up video's of the events that don't make the broadcast cut?
I also don't buy Megan's theory that we just happen to only watch events that Americans are good at because Americans just happen to be good at popular events. I think that she's inverted the causation.
Consider the coverage of the Tour de France pre, during, and post Lance Armstrong's record breaking races. It was only when a prominent American was in the event and had a good chance of winning that you could find any American coverage. The Tour de France became (briefly) popular, in America, because of the American connection. Once Armstrong left the scene, the popularity of the sport plummeted. The same thing happened with Women's soccer.
There's no shame in admitting that there's a nationalist component to Olympic broadcasts. We're Americans and Americans like watching their countrymen do well (with a handful of exceptions that prove the rule).
In Check wrote:
"I disagree. I've trained with a few Olympic athletes, and I've found their unique experiences are often just as captivating as their exceptional abilities. Forget tragedies for a moment (since that makes up a small part of this persoanl coverage). What about motivations, recent athletic performances, rivalries, etc?'
But unfortunately most of the "human interest" material I've seen on American tv does not look at what makes the experiences of individual athletes unique, but instead more or less turns them all into instances of the same basic story.
I'm liking this pro-curling talk. My favourite sport out there, actually - the only one I'll seek out on TV. Athleticism for it's own sake isn't bad, but curling is a game of strategy and microscopic dexterity, which is much more appealing to me.
Do you actually believe that a country of 100 million people can't field competitive teams for as many sports as a country with 300 million?
Yes. And the medal totals bear me out.
You mean they allow other countries in the Olympics?
What is this "other countries"? And Europe is a sissy country.
"However, I do not understand people complaining about the lack of coverage of obscure sports when NBC is airing over 2000 hours of coverage on their various channels and even more coverage online...
NBC's coverage if you do not have cable or broadband is frustrating, but with either it becomes pretty good."
This isn't exactly true though. According to NBC's official TV schedule, there will be no TV coverage of Judo or Taekwondo at all. Not even during the hours of "Mixed Events" coverage! I understand that these are not sports that American's typically care about or do well in-- but doesn't it merit at least a little time? I'm not asking for as much as Rhythmic Gynmastics or Trampoline, but still...
I'm espically peeved about the lack of Judo, as I had some crazy notion that the gradually increasing popularity of MMA had awakened some American curiosity with regards to submission grappling. (I suppose the honchos at NBC have been paying more attention to the boos whenever the fights hit the mat in the UFC than I do.)
Thankfully, this stuff will be online, so I guess I can't get completely worked up about it.
(Rhythmic Gymnastics!?)
Do you actually believe that a country of 100 million people can't field competitive teams for as many sports as a country with 300 million?
Yes. And the medal totals bear me out.
Posted by Alsadius
Not true. Despite the genetic advantage that America (congoloid fast twitch muscle African-Americans) has that allows America to pile up medals in speed and jumping events, Germany East+West or unified still managed to beat both the 3 times more populous USA and USSR in medal totals in summer and winter games regularly.
Other powerhouses include the 20 million Australians, S Africa, Hungary, Norway+Austria at the winter games.
Many large population countries are near to effective zeros in the Olympics - India, Indonesia - or one sport wonders (Brazil, Cuba - boxing).
I end up watching more Olympics than I should because my brother was a good enough swimmer than he could seriously dream about making the team (although he didn't as injuries ended his career).
He's now a successful swim coach...
Anyway, if you've spent hundreds of weekends, year after year, going from one random town to another, watching your bro swim in Event 3, 15, 72, and 346 - and playing seven hours of electronic games in between - you tend to appreciate the athletes who actually made it. Especially swimmers in my case...
I kind of like the human stories, if in moderation. Like Lopez Lomong of "Team Darfur." His family thought he was dead and he had to flee to Kenya from Sudan. (There's more to it than that even) I wasn't going to watch the Olympics this year, but I might watch a bit of him. Also, as someone mentioned, most of us are less likely to know these people than we are to know NFL or NBA players. (I don't even follow team sports, but I'd say that's true)
Although what I don't like is when they try to work up some kind of feud in hopes of boosting ratings. I believe in the last Winter Olympics they constantly seemed to pit that white speedskater against the black one. I thought that was childish and irritating. Also I don't like when they put too much pressure that so-and-so is the greatest athlete ever then if they choke pounce on them like a cougar. I guess I'm wimpy, I only dislike the "human interest" when it gets mean. I also don't like booing athletes. (Curiously I generally don't care about sports at all)
Lastly I agree more fencing! I also want table tennis, I mean if it has to be set in China we might as well get more table tennis.
Oh please. I was living in Australia during the 1996 Olympics. Guess which events the ABC showed? Swimming, lots of swimming. Why? National pride - Aussies excelled at swimming that year.
The US is not the only nation to cover its own. Americans have national pride like anyone else and let it trump a more "proper" watching of the Olympics.
In any case, the only proper watching of the Olympics this year is none - I cannot allow myself to witness this spectacle. Plus, it's baseball season, - much more important in my eyes.
Better living through chemistry!
the strongest examples are India and, in all past olympics, China. More than 1/4 of humanity != 1/4 of medals.
I thought this was World Olympics. From NBC broadcasting it seems only americans are competing. I watch it for 15 minutes tonight and all they wre showing is US gymnasts for qualifying. Boring , boring and boring! It would more interesting to also see achievements of athletes from other countries. After all its is not american olympics...it is world olympics!
The coverage of the Olympics by NBC has been awful. We are delivered hours of beach volleyball and gymnmastics qualification rounds while finals events receive no coverage at all. Coverage of the finals of each event should take precedence, regardless of which countries are in the finals. Boycott all advertisers of NBC Olympics programming for at least the duration of the Olympics! Spread the word....boycott!
India does indeed have one of the lowest medal counts compared to population. Although China is low, it's not in the bottom 20. Other relatively populous nations who are in the "bottom 20" of per-capita medals are: Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/spo_sum_oly_med_all_tim_percap-medals-all-time-per-capita
Congo and Burma seem to be the largest nations to have never had a medal winner. (In case you're wondering it seems that neither nation named "Congo" has had a medal winner) I'm guessing they have no Winter Olympic medalists either.
"Saint Kitts and Nevis" appears to be the smallest nation to have a Summer Olympic medalist.
Nationmaster appears to be wrong. The smallest nation, in population, to have a Summer Medalist must be Tonga.
I think Liechtenstein is one of the, if not the, smallest nations to have an Olympic gold medalist. They also have several other medalists as they're a bit of a "skiing power", well for their size. They've got nine medals in all.
Who is directing the cameras on NBC? 2 straight hours of the women's marathon is ridiculous(!!!!)meantime there are many, many events taking place which we never even hear about much less see. I am so fed up with the coverage that I'm not even watching. They seem to spend hours on one sport instead of going back for updates. I can't believe that they can't take at least some time and review some of the events instead of watching heat after heat after heat. Let's watch the highlights (and I don't mean fifty reruns of Michael touching the finish line a nail's length in front of the next guy)!