NBC hates the Olympics

I had an epiphany yesterday. I was at the gym, and the Olympics were on TV. I wasn't really watching, just aware of it. Then, instead of continuing to show the games for which they had paid hundreds of millions of dollars, they instead decided to show the Daytona 500.

Now, my point here is not to denigrate the Daytona 500. I'm no fan of auto racing, but that's not what I driving at, if you'll pardon the pun.

No, what occurred to me is that NBC will do anything to avoid showing the actual competition at the games. You don't see them breaking away from the 500 to do a mist-lens, up-close-and-personal segment on Jeff Gordon. But that's all they do on the Olympics. They would much rather do an in-studio with Jerome Bettis than show, say, a complete 4x10km Cross-Country Ski Relay. (Speaking of the Bus, can you image if they had show a 3-minute on him during, say, the second-quarter of the SuperBowl, and then rejoined the game in progress?)

Somewhere along the line the TV folks got it into their head that no one will care about the games unless they have these intimate portaits of the athletes (a practice some of dubbed Kwan-ification). But guess what? You'll find out all you need to know about them by watching them compete. I'm not talking about winning and losing, either. Bode Miller, Shani Davis, and John Weir all showed us what they are made of.

What's more, the true drama of sports is diluted by the coverage itself. Instead of letting the intensity build, all momentum is lost by the constant cut-aways. When Marianne Timmer was waiting to see if her time in the 1000M Speed Skating would hold up, that was drama. I didn't need to see or hear anything about her to have an interest. I still don't know anything about her, but I wanted to see what would happen.

The games are so much less compelling when instead of seeing the competions we are instead subjected to talking about the competitors. Save that crap for your website, fellas! Better yet, don't.