Shark Bytes

For me the Olympics jumped after the 1984 Summer Games when networks loved Mary Lou Retton and from then on out started tying to guess as to which person would be "This Years Star". Remember the O'Brien brothers 15 years ago? Tank.

You can't predict who is going to be good and who isn't. You also can't make crap out of Crisco. The Olympics will never be the Superbowl, which is what NBC has been trying to make it into for 15 years now. Just show the damn sports, LIVE WOULD BE PREFERABLE, and let people which and enjoy.

My favorite Olympics sports are gymnastics, soccer, and track. I can't stand swimming and skiing though.

The OLympic broadcasts have 3 main problems for me
(in no order):

1) Not live enough
2) too much focus on certain athletes and events at the expense of the whole
3) Costas providing Speilberg like documentaries every 5 minutes about everything in the Olympics. The documentaries are great but they have their time and place.
I have heard that the coverage in Finland avoids these problems for the most part and without the ads that plague the American broadcast.

I hope that next time Costas devotes documentary time to the political issues in China.

It jumped the shark in 2006, when Michelle Kwan quit. The 2006 games were hella boring. Usually I wait till the end of the competition to find out the winners. This time I watch the results before the competition. Who are these pathetic stars: Chad Hedrick, Shani Davis, and Bode Miller. I only respect Apolo Ohno and Sasha Cohen. I can't wait for Beijing turn. Most of all the theme was "Passion Lives Here". I'm sorry to say, "Passion Did Not Live There". HTH Beijing, China looks more passionate about there games.

I really hate that the media always picks one "darling couple", one "bad boy", and one "sob story" for every olympics, then we have to listen to their endless personal stories at the expense of everything else...I'm also getting very tired of Bob Costas' little "fun facts" about every freaking athlete".."...you know, Frank, this young man holds his high school's record for chronic masturbation."

Sportscaster: "Well [random athlete that just won something]You did a fine job out there, congratulations on your medal. Now, we're all aware that your Mother's cousin's fiance's best friend's sister was recently diagnosed with cancer. Surely you had her in mind as you were doing whatever it is you do, correct?"
Randon athlete: "Boy I sure did Bob, she's been through a lot in the past few weeks..."

Whatever. I quit watching after I saw that a few times.

the olympics jumped the shark when it began to be televised. Period. Why you ask? It's BORING. Same goes for most pre-television sports. It was made to be watched in a stadium, by people who really had no famous people to worry about so these people doing the olympics were " special people".

Now we have television, which has replaced seeking out entertainment in gamesmanship, save where it contains violence or the prospect of people getting hurt ( like boxing, football, or car races)

The olympics BLOW. I hate the commercial interruption, i hate that they aren't just one big stratch of a commercial.

I HATE the goddamn olympics. eeeech. ptui!

I have to get a words in here too. I agree with many other people.

Primarily, I think coverage jumped when it went to NBC. ABC was the best at covering the olympics. I remember way back in 1980. The winter olympics. I was in elementary school. We had this thing where you could order books through the school. I got one that was published by ABC. It had the entire olympic tv schedule in it. The broadcasts did match what was shown in the book. They didn't waste time with the backstories.

Sadly, Jimmy Carter took us out of the summer olympics. I was bummed that I couldn't watch it. I don't remember it being on TV. Maybe it was on via CBC( I lived near Detroit back then ). Now that I am older, I cannot imagine how disappointed those athletes were. Four years of training and bam, no games.

I cannot wait for the Winter Olympics. Watching one of those hot Asian skaters perform a perfect triple camel toe is like hearing the pizza guy knocking on the door of the Oval Office. Whoever designs those outfits should be named the next CEO of Halliburton.

What was really annoying were the profiles on the various athletes. The idea of them was great, but the problem was they told you who won the gold. They always showed the promos right before the athlete's event. Lo and behold, that athlete won the gold. They should wait until after the event.

Once they profiled a Chinese gymnast who didn't win the gold. He messed up on the Rings big time. That was the only reason he was given a history profile.

I voted "Dream Team", however many things comtributed to the Olympics JTS.

I do enjoy the athlete profiles, as seeing them overcome problems in life do inspire me. BUT, do they have to be so sappy and overdone?

Also as other posters have noted, the jumping around from sport to sport to sport is annoying and the viewer loses the "rythym" of the sport they are watching.

As a former resident of a border state I agree with Canck posters talking about the CBCs coverage being better. Lets use the MLBs All-Star game as an example. When you watch the All Stars, do you only want to hear about the players from your favorite team? No! You want to know who is from the other teams and the other league, what they do well, etc. But this brings me to ...

The Dream Teams, are nothing but embarassing. One of the best parts of our country (USA) is the aspect of opportunity through hard work (e.g., 19180 Hockey team). Too often, the rest of the world only sees arrogance and expecting everybody to think we're so great (e.g., any modern professional "Dream Teams"). The way they act when they get their medals -- AAACK! Way to embarass our good country, you overpaid jers!!!

I'll continue to watch though, shark or no shark.

For Me, the Olympics in 1996, which were in my hometown, were ruined by NBC and their coverage. The Biggest upset, being the opening ceremonies. People worked hard to produce the skits and movement for the ceremony, only to have Bob Costas and the other guy announcing ruin the surprise by telling you what they were going to form (In the first 10 mins too, the Olympic Rings, and the 100 piece was meant to be a surprise, and they ruined it about 2 mins before it happened). Fluff stories here, What Bob Costas thinks about (Fill in Athelete Here), Oh, Yes The Americans are in this one! Oh yeah, and few other countries...Latvia or something. 2000 was even worse, 2002 was a tad better, but it was back to buisness in Athens in 2004, and I don't even want to talk about Turin (That's the Name! It may not sell many T-Shirt's, but it's Called TURIN!), with 25 events in 5 mins, jumping back and forth. Telling people to tune in for the closing ceremony, and then dropping an hour long fluff piece before it begins (making sure we do the right amount of editing. Want to make sure no-qualify Bodie is in enough shots.) Horrible. I'd be happy with, no talking, no stories, just the events, the medals ceremony, the opening and closing with little or no commentary. It's can't be that hard. 2008 is really going to suck.

Reebok unleashed a successful marketing plan that placed Dan O'Brien and Dave Johnson front and center as rival, American decathletes who were favorites to win the gold in Barcelona. Robert Zmelik won the gold. He was also endorsed by Reebok but not in the United States.

The Olympics jumped when they stopped focusing on sports and began to focus on sob stories. Also, too many BS "sports" and not enough boxing and weightlifting. And to the above poster, the correct name is Torino. Turin is the Amwericanized version, but Italian maps show it as Torino.

Okay, I must preface this by saying that American viewers are getting shafted by poor coverage. Canadian coverage is always vastly superior for a number of reasons. Canadians always get live coverage. NBC did not show one minute of live coverage from the Summer Olympics in Sydney. American networks cover the Games as if they are a soap opera. They deal with athletes overcoming personal problems at the expense of the events themselves. Jingoistic coverage doesn't help either. If an American is in an event, the American broadcasters barely acknowledge anyone else in even competing. Americans broadcasters are also guilty of provincialism. For example, The men's basketball final from 2004 wasn't shown in the USA because the Americans were eliminated in a semifinal. We in Canada got to see it. (By the way, the famous 1980 American hockey victory over the Soviet Union in Lake Placid was only seen live by those Americans who lived close enough to the Canadian border to pick up the CTV broadcast. ABC thought that General Hospital was too important to be bumped from its time slot!)

The 2006 Olympics were one big downer. Let me count the ways: 1) I don't get this curling thing. It looks like you're sweeping ice with a stone that looks like a hockey puck on steroids. How did this get to be a sport? 2) Bad costumes + lots of falling down = disappointing ice skating. 3) Can we PLEASE see one sport at a time and not jump from ice skating to downhill skiing to skeleton (SKELETON?!?) to yet another sport in one night? How am I suppose to sit through one sport I want to see if you keep switching sports so damn much? 4) Bob Costas. Someone needs to muzzle him once and for all. 5) Katie Couric. 'Nuff said. 6) Torino? The city is called Turin but NBC renames it Torino? Who's the idiot that came up with this idea? And finally, 7) Dick Button (I believe his name is) a.k.a. Negative Nancy. Does he ever have anything positive to say about anyone? Jesus! This man seriously needs a happy pill. Any wonder why everyone else turned to other shows like American Idol, Survivor, etc.? NBC, you totally blew it!