I’m totally into the Olympics, and sad it’s almost over.
First, kudos to NBC for not bogging us down with 20 minutes of human interest stories in 60 minutes of viewing time like they have done in the past.

But shame on NBC as well.

It took me a few days, but I finally figured out that what I was watching “live” in prime time, wasn’t actually live in our Pacific time zone . This is understandable, even though the International Date Line confuses me to no end.

Almost everything we are watching is taped. Therefore, in theory, NBC can show Californians the likes of Phelps, Bolt, Johnson or Liukin whenever they want–or is most convenient.

So why the hell do I have to stay up all night to watch swimming or track at 10:30PM after sitting through 2.5 hours of women’s volleyball over and over again. Know how much gymnastics I have seen this year: zero. Best I can tell, they showed it some time after midnight. I understand the desire to tease us and to draw us into watching more commercials, but come on, some of us want to actually sleep.

Just because east coasters get these sports late on their TV, doesn’t mean that NBC needs to follow the same program for us. Does ESPN delay Monday Night Football so that west coasters watch it from 9PM to past midnight? No, I watch it from 6-9:30PM then brag to everyone how the best thing about living on the west coast is Monday Night Football at reasonable hours.

Data shows that great sports moments (Mary Lou Retton, 1980 Olympic Hockey Team, Michael Jordan Era) spawn tens of thousands of little kids to pick up the sport, leading to a groundswell of talent 10 years afterwards.

The World Series now starts at about 9:00PM EST which is killing baseball’s next generation fan base, and in 50 years, people across America will tell their kids about how they never really considered swimming to be a sport, and didn’t see Michael Phelps in 2008 because it was past their bedtime. And you can forget about gymnastics.

Maybe things will be better for Vancouver ‘10, though I doubt it. They’ll screw it up.

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