Mike's Adel-blog: An Open Letter to NBC Regarding the Olympics

An Open Letter to NBC Regarding the Olympics

www.michaeladelberg.com Every four years, smatterings of the world?s greatest athletes gather for the great spectacle of the Summer Olympics. I have no beef with the Olympics as an athletic event, but it is delusion to think they make for good television. What follows is my Olympic-sized list of gripes with the 2012 Summer Olympics as televised sport.
1.?????? Pomp & Circumstance: The opening and closing ceremonies offer 19^th Century grandeur to a 21^st Century viewership disinterested in ceremony.
2.?????? Sports We Never Watch: For a quadrennial moment, prime-time television features track & field, swimming, and bike racing. Separated from the Olympic brand, these same sports are relegated to the most remote reaches of television and no one complains.
3.?????? Sports that Aren?t Sports: Though the wisecracks they induce are entertaining, the Olympics include loopy events such as synchronized swimming and pentathlon. (Note: in this Olympiad, the pentathlon is updated to include a laser pistol. This must make it cool.)
4.?????? Human Interest Stories: Telecasts are crammed with athlete profiles--plucky boys and girls who saved their nickels to jump on a trampoline or play table tennis at the highest level of international competition.
5.?????? U.S.A., U.S.A, U.S.A: I?m as patriotic as the next guy, but U.S. broadcasters need to cut out the chest-bumping every time an American wins a medal. Sorry folks, it?s generally a better story when an athlete from a tiny, poor country wins a medal.
6.?????? Boris Johnson: The U.K. has an admirable leadership culture. Regardless of party or crisis, its leaders are composed and well-spoken. But the London Mayor is all bravado and insane haircut; let?s hope he?s an aberration. We?ve already seen too much of him.
7.?????? Celebrity Drop-Ins: I don?t care if Matt Damon or Madonna or Brangelina attend the Olympics or not, but some people do. So, show celebs on camera if you must, but keep the microphones away from them. The plugs for their latest television shows are gratuitous.
8.?????? Lame Scandals: Sorry folks. The Chinese badminton players tanking games to set up medal round seeding just doesn?t cut it as sports scandal. No telegenic victims, no drugs, no bling, no?mug-shot. We have way more entertaining scandals in American professional sports.
9.??????Less 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation: I don?t watch much television, but I try to watch NBC?s Thursday line-up. Bumping 30 Rock or Parks and Recreation?the two best sitcoms on network TV?is bad practice for a last-place network struggling to maintain loyal viewers.
10.?? Bob Costas: Costas is a smart guy. He was a good sports broadcaster. Then someone appointed him sports-pundit/genius. Now he?s Frank Deford without the street cred. Brent Musburger and Bryant Gumbel were good sports broadcasters who started acting like they were bigger than the sports they covered. They fell from grace. Costas should fall too.? ?
As sport, the Olympics are cool. It?s good that the world?s athletes get together every four years. The vast majority of the athletes are wonderful, dedicated people. The host city benefits from the tourism and commercial spin-offs from the games. But none of this makes the Olympics good television. On any given evening, some cable station is re-running Apollo XIII or The Thirty Year Old Virgin; I?ll take either over diving or rowing, much less archery or badminton.

Source: http://michaeladelberg.blogspot.com/2012/08/an-open-letter-to-nbc-regarding-olympics.html

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