AlanBarber.Org
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
The Not So Grand Olympic Games
Is it just me or has the Olympics just been a major bust?
First off I’m seriously disappointed as the coverage. NBC has been making a big deal about how great the coverage was going to be. Yet, every night all I see is swimming/diving and gymnastics. Not to say there is anything wrong with swimming. My girlfriend was a swimmer growing up and I do find it enjoyable to watch. Michael Phelps is an amazing swimmer by the way.
Probably 75% of the sports are currently in competition right now so there should be no excuse not to give them all air time. And by air time I mean at least 30 minutes of tv viewing time at night on broadcast, not the middle of the day on one of the half dozen cable channels they’re currently shoving junk they don’t really want to cover. That’s what really bugs the heck out of me. They are showing events during the day on these channels but go back to the usual lineups for those other channels at night. I’d rather see them show the normal lineup during the day then at night use all their channels to show Olympic coverage at the same time.
I want to watch events like shooting, archery, equestrian, fencing, kayaking/canoeing but they always hid them away in the afternoons on the cable channels. I’ve missed all these great events because America is so stupid and only wants to see the same old junk over and over.
Secondly, where the heck are all the spectators at? I swear I have yet to watch an event that doesn’t have 90% of the seats open! They need to do something about that because it’s just plain embarrassing for everyone. Not to mention how sad it must make the athletes. They’re at the Olympics for crying out loud! That’s the highest honor you can get I would think. I can’t imagine how disappointed they must be to walk out ready to compete and realize no one is there to watch them!
In general it’s just not been a very great Olympics in my opinion.
on 08/18/2004 at 09:57 PM
General • TV, Movies, & Music • (3) Comments • Permalink
They’ve been showing lots of beach volleyball during the day. That’s pretty fun to watch but I don’t like the standard volleyball. Too many people and it goes slower.
Basketball has just been a bust. I don’t like bball anyways but I was severely pissed off to see us loose. We had a team of NBA players and they played worse than a high school team!
on 08/19/2004 at 10:22 AM
I work during the day so I miss out on most of what’s on. We’ve started keeping a tv on in the office so I can glance over and catch some stuff (saw a little water polo today--lame), but in the prime time I wish they did more than show f’ing swimming!
I completely agree. I honestly could care less about swimming. I want to see volleyball and basketball really bad and some of the off sports as well. Thank goodness the track events haven’t started yet, because they are also what I’m really looking forward to. They did have the shotput on last night which I really enjoyed watching.