NBC's Olympic Coverage Sucks

Aaron Timms, The Guardian: NBC paid $7.75bn for its Olympic rights ... and we got televisual vomit 

US viewers have been able to see everything at any given moment while understanding fundamentally nothing about what’s going on 

If there’s one message the Olympics unfailingly conveys, it’s that elite competition is all about making the right choices. At a certain point every athlete needs to make the decision not to do certain things: the fencer lunging for the head rather than the body, the trampolinist starting their routine on the third jump instead of the fourth, the whitewater slalom all-rounder choosing to focus, early in their career, on the kayak over the canoe. 

 In 2014 NBC paid $7.75bn for the rights to broadcast the Olympics in the US until 2032. For these Olympics, faced with an inhospitable timezone for US viewers, the host broadcaster has taken the competing athletes’ message of elite discipline in the heat of battle, thrown it out the window, and instead tried to show a bit of everything to every viewer on every available platform all at once. Fitting perhaps for a tournament held in 2021 but still stuck with the previous year’s label, a frazzled atmosphere has suffused American coverage of Tokyo 2020.

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WNU Editor: I live in Canada, and I can see watch the Olympics on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Network) or NBC. 

I gave up on NBC on Day one. 

I am also tired of seeing this type of U.S. coverage .... 'The X is the intersection where all people who are oppressed meet': US silver medalist shot putter Raven Saunders crosses arms above her head in most high-profile protest yet at Tokyo Olympics (Daily Mail), and this .... 'I represent the oppressed': Hammer thrower Gwen Berry who turned back on US flag says she's 'earned right to wear the uniform' after making it through qualifying round in Tokyo and says she'll 'CONTINUE to do what she's doing' (Daily Mail).