NBC Has Taken Fun Out of Games

Reading Sunday’s story by Alan Abrahamson about the latest NBC Olympic contract, I couldn’t believe that NBC’s Dick Ebersol told a truth not seen often enough. Though certainly it was not intended.

“The Olympics to us are not a sporting event,” Ebersol says. Excuse me? The world’s premier athletic competition is not a sporting event? To NBC, the Olympics are a private profit center, and to deliver those profits they must deliver ratings. They do that by showing less competition and more “in-depth stories” and abandoning sports like boxing to make room for more gymnastics to attract the marginal sports viewer (specifically, women). Also, the fact that very few events are shown live is another discussion altogether.

ABC and Roone Arledge certainly pioneered the “up close and personal” aspect of sports coverage, but not to the detriment of covering the sport. Ebersol and NBC have created the Olympic Paradox -- the more a network pays for the rights to show an Olympics, the less actual competition is broadcast. I get more sports coverage from an Olympics by reading The Times.

Billy Sottile

Lancaster