There is an equivalent for Olympic games which are time zones ahead (specifically ahead of me, by the way - it's always local time where the games are). Atlanta (Eastern Standard) was the last "current" Olympics in 1996, but since then it's been Sydney, Athens, Beijing, and London. For these, the main events we watch in prime time have already happened. 1996, Atlanta's year, was also the first steps of the Internet age, and I do not recall that the results then being easily available before the events aired. Now, in 2012, I have to actively avoid most media during the day so that the results are not "spoiled" for me half a day before I'm able to watch them on NBC. The United States men's gymnastics team is about to compete for gold now. I"m not even sure I'll be able to stay awake to watch and see how they do. It'd be nice to be able to grab video online, fast forward through, and see the results. The results are there, of course, I could know them in ten seconds through a Google search. I could, but I'm just not that kind of person, remember?
There are times when I would really want to watch online. Today in women's volleyball the U.S. team beat Brazil and at best I could only follow on Twitter and get score updates every few minutes. I would also love to see the sports they generally are not showing on television - wrestling, for example.
This isn't possible, this year, due to NBC. I wasn't expecting how, in this age, live feeds would not be provided (I feel that they were for the Beijing games?). NBC's website reads "Watch free video of the London 2012 Olympic Games on NBCOlympics.com". Well, not quite. You need a cable subscription that includes MSNBC, etc., and then on top of that, only, access is free. To a cable-less guy like me, out of luck. The pangs of cord-cutting regret I felt on learning only through a cable subscription could I enter the kingdom, "fortunately", quickly evaporated when I heard about how poor the video quality of the are - often very glitchy, if they work at all - though the regular ads that come on it seems have perfect quality. By the way, this has all been already summarized today already much better than here. A twitter hashtag, #nbcfail, has popped up and makes for fun reading, and gives some sense of revenge against those denying the people their Olympic access.
Anyways, those complaining of tape delay get a reprieve next time around: Rio de Janeiro's Olympics in 2016 will be almost Eastern Standard (one hour ahead in July). For me personally, however if all goes as I hope, it won't matter: I want to be there in person. It might be the best chance I have, until Norwalk, CT wins an Olympic big...
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