So I’m watching the Olympics totally online this year, and I thought I’d give you all a brief update on how that’s working out.
Not great.
That said, there are some pros and cons. I’ve discovered NBC is fairly draconian in the measures they’ve taken to make sure you can’t watch the games anywhere other than their site, if you’re an American. So all that free streaming Canada is shooting out into the internets? Unavailable. Which is disappointing.
On the other hand, NBC is at least doing a fairly good job of making all the events (with all the competitors) available online at their site, which I appreciate. For one thing, I like being able to watch everyone compete–not just the handful NBC has decided have important enough stories for me to care about. Because you know what? Everyone has stories. So I’ve gotten to see figure skaters fall, but not just skaters from China, Russia, America, and the occasional German. No–I’ve seen Estonian and Polish falls, as well. Spread the love around some.
That said, most of the coverage NBC has online has no commentary. This is bad in a way–a lot of the time, I’m not really sure what the rules of the sport are that I’m watching, and it can be harder to tell if someone did something wrong now and then. But it’s good, too. I’ve decided most of the commentary is tripe. You can tell just fine on your own how someone’s doing.
Another bad spot is NBC’s tendency to boldly announce results on every page of their website. BODE MILLER WINS BRONZE tends to defeat some of the suspense, when you see it before you watch the event.
But in the end, I’d give the coverage a C. Definitely lacks in picture quality, and the rules of when and how you can watch it are frustrating, but I can watch it. Ideal? No. Doable? Yes. Worth $600 to have my satellite back for? Definitely not.
Hopefully NBC gets it better for the next Olympics. Because in the end, I feel like the Olympics are something not to make money off of, but to celebrate as an entire globe.
But maybe that’s just me.