Live data from Hacker News

Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

mleverything.substack.com

131–140 of 300 posts

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#131
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia cheated with steroids / doping at a state level. So Russia itself was banned from the Olympics (their flag, their anthem, etc. etc.) The athletes shouldn't be punished however, so the athletes are allowed to get together to make their own group. At least, the 2021 athletes are not the same athletes who cheated years ago, so we should give them a chance at the world stage. Flying under the Olympic flag under a…

If a country cheats in the Olympics, who should be punished by the IOC then if they cannot ban the athletes? I think it was worth it for Russia to cheat in the Sochi Olympics. There doesn't seem to be any significant consequence from their violations.

The 11 athletes who cheated at Sochi were banned for life from all Olympic events. The issue is that Russia as a state cheated as well, so its a bit difficult to figure out a proper punishment.

They just didn't want to ban the new generation of athletes. A lot of these kids are just 19 years old (aka: they were 13 years old at Sochi). I think banning the cheaters, but not the "next generation" is a good plan.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#132
If you have cable TV, you can watch everything at nbcolympics.com/schedule so it’s actually quite accessible. I believe you can watch 30 minutes of content without signing in using your cable account.

Also, the author is wrong. NBC broadcast the opening ceremonies at 7am [0]. The author must have seen a rebroadcast.

[0] https://sports.nbcsports.com/2021/07/23/when-do-the-tokyo-ol...

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#133

I don't understand why the Olympics have to be so fast. Build an insane amount of infrastructure, have dozens of events simultaneously all of the time, then ship everyone home. I end up missing just about everything. If I want to catch some of the storylines, I really need them spoon fed to me. If they stretched out the events over a month or two we would get double benefits - we could actually consume more of the ev…

I think it's a "big splash" thing -- make enough waves all at the same time, and you'll spread to people who aren't paying attention. It's the same reason why the video game industry still did a bunch of press conferences all around the same time last year and this year, in place of E3 -- generate enough noise, and you start to move outside the enthusiast press and into mainstream press.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#134

You must be a youngster. NBC has been fucking up the Olympics broadcasts since they started back in 1988. They've always been overly USA-centric, they refuse to air the broadcasts when the events happen, insisting on time shifting everything, and loading so many commercials into the thing, it is impossible to watch. I pretty much quit watching 3 or 4 olympics ago. Today, as I tune through the channels, I always see t…

All I want to enjoy the olympics is a schedule of events in my local time and the ability to watch said events LIVE if I choose to. I tried searching for this when the olympics started and I gave up entirely. Is there any ability to get this?

An Australian VPN and 7plus is the closest you'll get.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#136
post #85

Just let me send you $20 for an Olympics "pass" and give me access to multiple streams so I can pick which events to watch — without commercials. Is that bad business? Because I'm afraid I am sitting out the Olympics this year. :-(

That's what's available in Germany. It seems like they livestream every competition, sometimes without commentary. Check whether they blocked your region here: https://www.zdf.de/sport/sport-im-zdf-livestream-live-100.ht...

I love this option to watch all of the events, the ones without the commentary are a refreshing change.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have signed into the "NBC Sports" app on Roku with my basic package Dish Network credentials, and that allows me to view any event live or on replay. This is in USA. I'm not sure what else we expect NBC to do here. I have watched canoeing, cycling, rugby, equestrian, TKD, sailing, etc. Of course their headline/primetime coverage is shit and doesn't know sports other than swimming and gymnastics exist. They have the…

> I'm not sure what else we expect NBC to do here. Not tie it up with a Dish network subscription? NBC (or rather Comcast) wants to get paid from all sides, advertisers, TV channel distributors, online streamers. That is why there is no banner on their website saying “pay $x and stream whatever Olympic event you want with NBC website/app”. Actually, the answer to the thread title’s question is the fact that Comcast d…

I also don't believe in "intellectual property", but in a legal regime that isn't so enlightened it isn't surprising that we have to go to some small amount of trouble and pay some small amount of money to see non-shit coverage of a ridiculously costly sporting event.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#138

I've been watching on the "site where you can actually watch live. And they have replays… of preliminary matches" and I've found it to be really good. You can choose any sport to watch live, or to watch the compilation broadcasts that they show on TV. You can pause and rewind broadcasts. Many of the sport titles do have the competitor or country names in them. And each stream does have a button the side to view the r…

Which site would that be? I am not sure what you are hinting at? Sounds really useful.

It's in the blog post, I was quoting from it: stream.nbcolympics.com

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#139

I don't understand why the Olympics have to be so fast. Build an insane amount of infrastructure, have dozens of events simultaneously all of the time, then ship everyone home. I end up missing just about everything. If I want to catch some of the storylines, I really need them spoon fed to me. If they stretched out the events over a month or two we would get double benefits - we could actually consume more of the ev…

I don't care about the storylines at all. I dont care about their sob story. I just want to see some humans do some amazing things with their body.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#140

I've been watching on the "site where you can actually watch live. And they have replays… of preliminary matches" and I've found it to be really good. You can choose any sport to watch live, or to watch the compilation broadcasts that they show on TV. You can pause and rewind broadcasts. Many of the sport titles do have the competitor or country names in them. And each stream does have a button the side to view the r…

Where is that site?

It's in the blog post, I was quoting from it: stream.nbcolympics.com
Post reply on HN