I love the Winter Olympics, but this year they were all but ruined for me by NBC. It started with what I thought was terrible commentary during the Opening Ceremonies. From Meredith Viera’s advice to “Google” the cyrillic alphabet, to Matt Lauer’s smug, and often insulting, political analysis of every single country as they entered the arena. Strangely, I’m unable to find any video of it on the web. However, it was also noted by Mary McNamara in the L.A. Times.
In short, NBC have been terrible guests. Impolite to our hosts, insulting to the athletes, and harping on the Olympic ring malfunction during the opening ceremonies. (As well as reporting it as “news” after the fact.)
The banality of the commentary was highlighted by Meredith Viera explaining what we were watching, in the most literal of senses. It was reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s commentary on the “Conan the Barbarian” DVD.
For me, the height of unprofessionalism came with the inclusion of a very obviously ailing Bob Costas. The glaring relief of his pink eye in high definition spoke volumes to the regard with which NBC had for the games and our Russian hosts. When the decision was made to rest the Dread Pirate Costas, they replaced him with the weirdly unshaven Matt Lauer. (No, I don’t want my windows washed. Step away from the car.)
Let’s not forget the “bits”, such as the always hysterical Steve Harvey taking on the US Women’s Curling Team..
There were others that were just too unfunny to bother with.
It doesn’t really surprise me, as the Olympics, like all sports now, have become commercialized beyond redemption and the attempts to monetize the events clearly overshadow the display of athletics. The best evidence of this is the inclusion of Lolo Jones on the United States Bobsled team. So the message here is, if you want to be the best bobsledder in the world, don’t practice your sport. First, get popular in another sport, sign lots of endorsements and get a large press following. THEN you can compete in bobsledding.
Hurdling and Bobsledding are very similar. I missed the Bobsled Jumping this year, but I bet it was thrilling!
Jim Says: “Bobsled jumping would be awesome. I’ll be happy to put it all together for 15% (in perpetuity), unlimited use of trademark, copyright, and logo, as well as royalty on all merchandise, globally.”
