NBC leaves Winter Olympics viewers in dark

“I didn’t know there was a Winter Olympics.” And thus began the latest installment of “The Simpsons” on Sunday night, where Homer and Marge won the gold medal in curling.

I’ve always been a big fan of the Winter Olympics, which I find to be just as unique and rewarding as the Summer Games. However, NBC is severely impairing my ability to enjoy the games this year, not to jump on the “hate-wagon” or anything.

In just the first few days of these Vancouver games, I have been so confused with what’s going on that I’m actually questioning my sports fan-ness (which is a very, very bad thing).
Two years ago, I praised NBC’s coverage of the Beijing Olympics to friends and family. During the Summer Games, I was impressed with the commentary and understood exactly who the competitors were and what round of competition was underway.

For example, during the swimming events (which even casual fans watched) the broadcasters made sure to inform the viewer of the main competitors in the field and their strengths and weaknesses. I felt fully equipped heading into each race and knew exactly what each athlete was looking to accomplish.

Quizzically, these winter games have been a disaster for the common man trying to capture the magic of the Olympics.
To begin, the commentators are woefully ill-informed, and there have already been several events in which the basic goals and favorites to win have not been made clear to the viewer. Viewers tend to be more familiar with the sports in the Summer Games to begin with, so this lack of explanation is particularly appalling.

In a sport like ski jumping, where all of the athletes come within several meters of one another, I need to know what a “good score” is and how the jumpers position themselves to win. To the inexperienced eye, it looks like they all have similar form, and the commentary fails to articulate the difference.

Similarly, after a luger finishes his run or a ski jumper lands successfully, the scores flash up on the screen without much time to understand them or compare them to previous athletes. Over the past three days, several NBC commentators have compared different Olympic sports to golf, but it seems NBC could learn something from golf, as well, by constantly flashing the leader-board on the screen.

Even worse, only a few broadcasters have decided to tell us how many people qualify for the final rounds of the various competitions. At least in the men’s moguls on Sunday, we were informed that the top 20 out of 30 skiers would advance—but of course a leader-board was too much to ask for.

NBC has also suffered from shuttling back and forth between several events at once. This task is one of the main challenges of Olympic coverage, but in the Summer Olympics, I understood which events were proceeding and what rounds they were in, and I always felt like something was going on.

There are obviously more events in the Summer Games, but the amount of downtime in the Winter Games, thus far, has been painstaking. On Saturday night, I blazed through three hours of Olympic coverage in 25 minutes. Apolo Ohno’s five minute race required 25 minutes of pre-race melodrama that TiVo saved me from having to watch.

Why does NBC only show us the last five lugers (which makes it impossible to get a sense for the field and the sport), instead of cutting into Bob Costas’ melodramatic hour? The fact that there are fewer events should mean that the viewer gets to see more complete action and that the coverage is exceedingly clear and organized.

My next gripe is perhaps the most important one. Most of the time, I have no idea what the athletes are competing in. Yesterday, an American won our country’s first medal in the Nordic combined event, which awkwardly pairs ski jumping with cross country skiing. NBC so horrifically botched the coverage of this event that it should be re-aired. As someone who understands the Winter Olympic sports pretty well, it took me far too long to understand how the event worked and how points were awarded. During the ski jumping portion, I never understood who the top competitors were, or what distance would put a given athlete in a decent position to win.

In contrast, during the Summer Olympics I perfectly understood the decathlon’s proceedings, which features eight more events than yesterday’s Nordic combined competition did. At every point during the decathlon, I knew who was in the lead and what score certain athletes needed to win.

Similarly, it took too long for me to understand that Sunday night’s figure skating competition was a two-part affair that would conclude the following evening. NBC also cuts into random speed skating races without telling the viewer if the race is a qualifier (let alone how many people are trying to qualify) or a final, airs the race, and then cuts back to Al Michaels in the studio without ever offering an explanation. I shouldn’t have to run to my computer to research which sport I’m looking on television.

In “The Simpsons” on Sunday night, each round of curling that Homer and Marge competed in was announced, making Matt Groening’s coverage of the Olympics more comprehensible than NBC’s.
Luckily, there’s still time for NBC to improve its coverage of these Winter Games. And by the way, where are Bob Costas’ sweaters? Honestly, NBC, that’s your bread and butter.

Jacob Shapiro is a List College senior majoring in history and Talmud.
sportseditors@columbiaspectator.com