As a german what is being described here seems crazy, we have to pay taxes which pay for state financed Independent media and it is also required that all important sporting events can not be behind paywalls. You can watch a germany focused broadcast of the olympics all day with minimal ads which only play maybe every hour or you can watch live streams of all events online or trough their app. Most streams also have dedicated commentators that seem reasonably knowledgable about the sports and have quite extensive background knowledge about the athletes and the last years in the sport. It has honestly been a blast watching all kinds of events i would never watch and having someone who is really in to it take you along for the ride
Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
221–230 of 300 posts
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#222As the last person in America with an antenna, I will note that their broadcast coverage is pretty much exactly what it has always been through the years. You turn it on and watch it.
I have an antenna as well. I was really hoping my NBC affiliate would use their other broadcast channels (4.1, 4.2, 4.3, etc) to show other Olympic sports. The promise of digital broadcasting. Nope, just more reruns from the 1980s.
I only recall this happening once, when WRAL (then a CBS affiliate) did that for the March Madness NCAA Men's tournament 10-15 years ago. Later tournaments had sold off the rights to some of the games to cable networks, so they were unable to do it again.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone I know sans maybe one person has cable/satellite. So I don't know what future you're living in. The problem to me is they aren't showing replays that I feel a lot of people want to see on air, so you can't watch at a bar/restaurant. This to me is the major problem with sports on streaming. People like to watch at bars, but bars often don't have streaming devices on hand or a staff that wants to deal with it.
Maybe it's a generational thing? I don't know anybody with cable or satellite, not even my parents.
For me it's not generational, but cheaper. Adding the base TV package to my internet is cheaper than no-cap internet alone.
I rarely watch live TV, but it helps that I can use my TV login to stream most of the channels on-demand.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everyone I know sans maybe one person has cable/satellite. So I don't know what future you're living in. The problem to me is they aren't showing replays that I feel a lot of people want to see on air, so you can't watch at a bar/restaurant. This to me is the major problem with sports on streaming. People like to watch at bars, but bars often don't have streaming devices on hand or a staff that wants to deal with it.
Maybe it's a generational thing? I don't know anybody with cable or satellite, not even my parents.
The only people I know with cable/satellite TV subscriptions are 50+ years old who grew up in the US. All my immigrant elders use IPTV boxes now to get their international channels.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#225If 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...
I do not know anybody with cable TV. It's like saying "If you have a rotary phone..."
My mom lives with me, and she likes cable, so we added it for relatively little to our existing Verizon package. It's nice to be able to log into streaming sites like the NBC Olympics.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not know anybody with cable TV. It's like saying "If you have a rotary phone..."
Everyone I know sans maybe one person has cable/satellite. So I don't know what future you're living in. The problem to me is they aren't showing replays that I feel a lot of people want to see on air, so you can't watch at a bar/restaurant. This to me is the major problem with sports on streaming. People like to watch at bars, but bars often don't have streaming devices on hand or a staff that wants to deal with it.
I think the people that have cable/satellite TV are roughly the same ones that still have landline phones.
Sure, it exists, not like there's nobody, but I'm pretty sure it's less than half in total.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#227I want to plug locast. They are not huge yet, but basically provide a streaming equivalent of broadcast TV, letting you stream your local broadcast instead of needing an antenna. With how flaky antennas are it's an awesome service, and a non-profit.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#228I have a plex lifetime subscription and a TV tuner in the attic with an antenna that can see local TV stations. My server in the basement runs Plex and can connect to the tuner over ethernet. I told plex to record all Olympic events and to mark the commercials. The result is still a mess, but I have everything NBC broadcasts and a "skip commercials" button pops up for all of the true commercials. I still get all the…
Depending on where you are, you are at best getting highlights.
I like watching the sports they don't like showing. Nothing worse than NBC claiming they will be showing one sport only to find that it was 30 minutes of talking heads and some gymnast/swimmers life story.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#229Given that the event is in Japan, I'm curious why someone would hire a US-based service to stream it rather than just a Japanese based one. Actually, I'm surprised the Olympics themselves don't have a direct subscription for streaming the entire event where people can sign up and stream it. I'm under the impression that the event is designed for the PHYSICAL audience first, and streaming it is kind of a poorly though…
> Actually, I'm surprised the Olympics themselves don't have a direct subscription for streaming the entire event where people can sign up and stream it. NBC tried something similar 30 years ago. It was a financial failure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympics_Triplecast
That is not comparable to today, where everyone has the ability to instantly stream it on personal devices in their pocket.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#230The question is why is it so hard to watch the Olympics now that you can't watch it live. It should be as easy as going to a URL and pick what you want to watch.
So much this. Fencing was only played once at 5am EST. Finding somewhere to watch recordings is impossible.