The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

I love how the media seems to love giving Begg-Smith the cold shoulder because he won't answer their questions. But all I have to say is this - if you can find time to be one of the best skiiers in the world AND run a multi-million dollar company, do you really have to answer to anyone at that point?

He doesn't talk because his business is running malware on people's computers. He ran off to a country that had little enforcement in that area and could avoid lawsuits from U.S. and Canadian companies.

His business background is extremely shady. From non-payment to publishers to hijacking computers. Sure he's a millionaire, but so are a lot of people who did a lot of bad things.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by TargetPractice6

Anyone know if there will be an internet stream of tomorrow curling match that I can watch at work?

+1

SI

[sterlingice]

Ok, so if you're on some of the larger cable providers (for instance I'm with Verizon FIOS)- you can watch the feed on the nbcolympics site if you use your cable company login. Looks like it's for hockey and curling, only.

SI

[MJ4H]

I've watched many other events online besides hockey and curling.

[sterlingice]

Through "legit" means or other?

SI

[MJ4H]

nbc website

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

He doesn't talk because his business is running malware on people's computers. He ran off to a country that had little enforcement in that area and could avoid lawsuits from U.S. and Canadian companies.

Is there some legal exception made for the Olympics that he can't be served under Canadian laws while here?

[Senator]

Originally Posted by Karlifornia

Man....this luge death has really cast a pall over these games so far. Who knows if the mood will lighten? What was the mood like during Munich games after the execution of the Israeli team? Anyone who was around that can answer my question would find me indebted.

I wasn't old enough to remember, but I am a member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, (an offshoot of the IOC desire to collect data) and I have talked with many athletes from those games. Most of the athletes were sickened by it, but were so focused on their events, they didn't allow themselves to dwell on it.

The elders I talked to who were not athletes were completely stunned, and thought Avery Brundidge handled it poorly. But, there is a real belief that many groups, (think Atlanta bomber) think they can disrupt the world by causing chaos, and from what I have been told; not much would prevent them from continuing the games.

[sterlingice]

The downhill was definitely disappointing for the reasons stated above. Cuche looked like he was having a great run and even making up time and then he run into a slush pile right in the middle of the course at the end and went from 0.05 back to 0.35 back in the last segment.

It just doesn't make for a level playing field at all.

SI

[sterlingice]

I am enjoying the snowboarding tonight, however.

SI

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

The downhill was definitely disappointing for the reasons stated above. Cuche looked like he was having a great run and even making up time and then he run into a slush pile right in the middle of the course at the end and went from 0.05 back to 0.35 back in the last segment.

It just doesn't make for a level playing field at all.

SI

Originally Posted by sterlingice

I am enjoying the snowboarding tonight, however.

SI

Agreed with both points. And now the figure skating has me looking for something else to do for a bit until we get back to real competition.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

Agreed with both points. And now the figure skating has me looking for something else to do for a bit until we get back to real competition.

kansas vs. texas a&m is about to start on espn

[Eaglesfan27]

I'm a few minutes behind on DVR delay, but I can't believe how bad that ice looked on an indoor arena for the 500 M speed skating.

[sterlingice]

I keep switching back and forth between Olympics and Big Monday

SI

[sterlingice]

Ok, near as I can tell, for the figure skating, it was going 7-6-5... in order but somehow we went 5-3-2-4-1. Huh? Why?

Oh, and their routine seems easier than the Germans by quite a bit

SI

[henry296]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Ok, near as I can tell, for the figure skating, it was going 7-6-5... in order but somehow we went 5-3-2-4-1. Huh? Why?

Oh, and their routine seems easier than the Germans by quite a bit

SI

The skate in groups of 4 and then there is a draw to determine the order of the group. So the top 4 are together and then random.

[jbergey22]

The reason the summer Olympics is better than the Winter Olympics is figure skating. This just blows to have to deal with 3-4 hours of this crap every night.

[Lathum]

I hate the fact that I can't participate in this thread because unless I want to watch online instead of my 50'' HD TV the stupid games are tape delay even though I live 3 hours from Vancouver.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

The reason the summer Olympics is better than the Winter Olympics is figure skating. This just blows to have to deal with 3-4 hours of this crap every night.

Um... gymnastics begs to differ

SI

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Um... gymnastics begs to differ

SI

Good point! The Americans actually sniff a medal in that every once in awhile though.

EDIT I guess I was completely wrong. Looks like the US has done very well in ladies figure skating over the years.

[sterlingice]

Instead of cutting into my luge, mogul, and curling in the summer, gymnastics cuts into my, I dunno, fencing, water polo, and judo

SI

[bronconick]

There's also a crapload of swimming and track and field that gets mixed into the gymnastics. They're not mixing enough skiing and speedskating to match.

[bhlloy]

I find it very interesting in that Verizon commercial the guy that "wins" is basically wearing team Canada colors and the guy that gets left behind is wearing team US blue. Doubly odd when you realize they sponsor the US team.

I understand verizon is red and AT&T is blue. But they at least could have made the loser wear something that didn't look like a carbon copy of the team USA uniform.

And yes I have given this waay too much thought

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by bronconick

There's also a crapload of swimming and track and field that gets mixed into the gymnastics. They're not mixing enough skiing and speedskating to match.

could that be because of weather issues and stuff?

[Chief Rum]

Lemme know when the real stuff (i.e. men's hockey) starts.

[jbergey22]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

Lemme know when the real stuff (i.e. men's hockey) starts.

tomorrow 9am your time. Im assuming your west coast being Clipper fans normally arent Nationwide

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by jbergey22

tomorrow 9am your time. Im assuming your west coast being Clipper fans normally arent Nationwide

Yup, SoCal baby, OC for life.

[whomario]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

I am enjoying the snowboarding tonight, however.

SI

it was pretty great. Mind you, i´m in europe so am not exactly exposed to the X games and stuff like that, so i can´t compare. But i thought it was both highly entertaining and admireable what those guys do on that course.

Plus i really like the atmosphere they create. Overall it seems that winter olympics discipline have more close bonds between athletes than summer, propably because of the world-cup-circuit going on all winter with event every week or more often even.
Has more of a "we are in this together" feel than at the summer games.
On the ice skating 3000s for the women the winner couldn´t stop praising the 2nd placed german girl f.e. , you have main competitors like Lindsay Vonn and Maria Riesch living with each other during the summer and stuff like that more frequently in winter disciplines from what i gather.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Announcer quote of the night from Figure Skating competition:

"She just didn't stay on top of him."

Thank God we finally have some curling matches today. They were mentioning this morning on the radio that they had a hard time selling tickets for the figure skating events, but the curling competition was the hottest ticket of these Winter Games. Hope those Minnesota boys show the Canadians a thing or two on how to slide a rock.

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Is there some legal exception made for the Olympics that he can't be served under Canadian laws while here?

Served for what? Operating a business that may violate canadian law in Australia?

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by MJ4H

nbc website

Where do you go on the site to watch live events?

[gstelmack]

One big issue with coverage is that NBC has a ton of channels they aren't using much. I get that NBC wants figure skating in primetime, but why aren't they showing ANYTHING besides women's hockey between 6PM and 8PM? You have USA-HD, CNBC-HD, MSNBC-HD, and UniversalHD, and all I've got is women's hockey on CNBC-HD? Why not live events on the cable networks, and the tape-delay stuff on the national channel for the primetime lineup?

[sterlingice]

Well, you probably don't want to cannibalize your national audience, which advertisers are paying top dollar for, to play stuff on CNBC.

I think the bigger issue is that there just aren't as many events going on during the Winter Olympics so there really are only 3 or 4 things a night and you can squeeze them all into the 5 hour broadcast if you chop them up.

SI

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

You have USA-HD, CNBC-HD, MSNBC-HD, and UniversalHD, and all I've got is women's hockey on CNBC-HD?

That's weird.

From 6p-8p, my listings (from 2010 Olympic TV Schedule | NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA | NBC Olympics )
show Women's Hockey tonight on MSNBC and Women's Curling on CNBC

[sterlingice]

Curling doesn't start out until today so he was probably talking about yesterday.

But if you look at what is on other stations, it's curling and hockey and that's it. No "we'll show you the cross country that we only show 15 minutes of in the afternoon show" or "how about every athlete in the bobsled rather than the top competitors and the Americans".

SI

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Curling doesn't start out until today so he was probably talking about yesterday.

But if you look at what is on other stations, it's curling and hockey and that's it. No "we'll show you the cross country that we only show 15 minutes of in the afternoon show" or "how about every athlete in the bobsled rather than the top competitors and the Americans".

SI

They showed an entire cc race during the afternoon show yesterday. I now fully support the decision not to show more cc during prime time.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

No "we'll show you the cross country that we only show 15 minutes of in the afternoon show" or "how about every athlete in the bobsled rather than the top competitors and the Americans".

Because Rachel Maddow & Keith Olberman discussing Hillary Clinton's penis size vs other historical figures would be more compelling television than either of the things you just mentioned.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Because Rachel Maddow & Keith Olberman discussing Hillary Clinton's penis size vs other historical figures would be more compelling television than either of the things you just mentioned.

To you maybe. I prefer watching bobsled to about 95% of what's on regular TV. Heck, this + Sunday Night Football is the only time I watch ANYTHING on any of the NBC channels, aside from the occasional hit on UniversalHD. And they are driving me away.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

To you maybe. I prefer watching bobsled to about 95% of what's on regular TV. Heck, this + Sunday Night Football is the only time I watch ANYTHING on any of the NBC channels, aside from the occasional hit on UniversalHD. And they are driving me away.

Well, that makes one of you

Reality is that they don't want to drive the average rating for the off network coverage down showing stuff that virtually no one in the US would watch without being paid. They're already taking a $250m bath on the deal, no sense making the ad rates lower on the next go round.

[JetsIn06]

Curling on USA right now.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Well, that makes one of you

Reality is that they don't want to drive the average rating for the off network coverage down showing stuff that virtually no one in the US would watch without being paid. They're already taking a $250m bath on the deal, no sense making the ad rates lower on the next go round.

I understand all of this, but on the other hand that's the responsibility you take on when you agree to broadcast the Olympics. If you don't want to reuse the existing channels, then add some new ones that you provide to the cable operators, don't use this backdoor "cable userid/password" to watch streaming stuff on the NBC site itself.

And if you're losing money, why did you go after them again?

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by JetsIn06

Curling on USA right now.

I'm DVRing right now.

The WRONG DAMN channel. I set it for CNBC, as that is where the women come on in five hours.

[JetsIn06]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

I'm DVRing right now.

The WRONG DAMN channel. I set it for CNBC, as that is where the women come on in five hours.

[kingfc22]

Curling!!!

[sterlingice]

I can't get the silverlight stream to work online. Damn silverlight

SI

[digamma]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I understand all of this, but on the other hand that's the responsibility you take on when you agree to broadcast the Olympics. If you don't want to reuse the existing channels, then add some new ones that you provide to the cable operators, don't use this backdoor "cable userid/password" to watch streaming stuff on the NBC site itself.

And if you're losing money, why did you go after them again?

I think a better argument than a social responsibility one is that by chopping up the coverage and packaging it neatly by time zone, you actually devalue the Olympic franchise. We are able to get results real time, so we either have to settle for watching a glorified replay or avoid communicating with others to have some sort of Olympic experience. While short term ratings may benefit, long term, you're reducing interest in the Olympics as a whole and reducing the value of the NBC Olympic investment.

[sterlingice]

Finally- couldn't get it to work in Firefox or IE but in Chrome, I got a popup saying "this might not work with your browser" and it works

Probably have too high of security settings on the other browsers and don't want to mess with them just for this.

SI

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I understand all of this, but on the other hand that's the responsibility you take on when you agree to broadcast the Olympics. If you don't want to reuse the existing channels, then add some new ones that you provide to the cable operators, don't use this backdoor "cable userid/password" to watch streaming stuff on the NBC site itself.

You do realize that NBC is providing almost 850 hours of coverage across the various platforms? The most ever given by any US network to the winter games, and in the neighborhood of as much as the past two Winter Games combined. And that they did over 1,000 hours of coverage of sports virtually no one gives a damn about leading up to the Olympics?

And still people bitch? Damn, we are a nation with a false sense of entitlement arent' we?

And if you're losing money, why did you go after them again?

Hey, stupid is as stupid does, you'll get no argument from me about that.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by digamma

We are able to get results real time, so we either have to settle for watching a glorified replay or avoid communicating with others to have some sort of Olympic experience.

The bulk of the viewers aren't the hard core who will go searching for results while they're at work. The majority are regular Joes (and Janes) that see any of these events other than figure skating & hockey only during the Olympics. The less buzz about results that occur outside of primetime the better chance they'll tune in during primetime.

[DaddyTorgo]

no commentary from you Jon about how NBC doesn't have a responsibility to show the Olympics in any particular way, but only to maximize shareholder value?