Wings For Wheels

Tuesday morning, Aaron wrote on Twitter:

Thoughts on NBC’s Olympic coverage? Every fan of these sports and this event should cheer for ESPN/ABC to win next set of rights.

Although I agree that NBC’s coverage can often be frustrating, and it’s been well-documented in many places, I asked him why he thought ABC/ESPN could do better and he responded via e-mail. I asked if I could post his e-mail here, along with my comments, and he gave his permission.

Here the gist of it:

NBC grossly overpaid for the rights and guaranteed too many viewers to the advertisers. That means they’ve subsequently had to cram too many ads into the primetime programming and relentlessly force viewers towards the taped NBC coverage and away from live coverage of many events.

ABC/ESPN will hopefully pay a bit less for the rights, meaning that they can allow it to be a sporting event again rather than a RATINGS EVENT that must be milked for every single last Nielsen point. That means more live coverage both on TV and online. It also means that the Olympics gets the full ESPN “push” treatment like soccer did. That’s a big big thing in terms of winning back actual sports viewers rather than just women.

NBC’s contract with the IOC expires after the 2012 Summer Games. The 2014 Winter Olympics will take place in Sochi, Russia, between eight and eleven hours ahead of the United States. Regardless of who gets the rights, there will be nothing shown in prime-time that is live. Rio in 2016 might be different, but for Sochi the marquee events, which have to be shown in prime-time, will be on tape delay. That means that ABC will be able to chop it up, and there’s nothing to suggest that they won’t do it. Remember that the defining sporting event of my lifetime (you had yet to be born) was shown on tape delay, and that took place in the Eastern time zone.

The Olympics aren’t a sporting event. They are a cultural event that brings the world into our living rooms with sports as the conduit. A network can’t justify blocking off the amount of hours to coverage without treating it as such, and that means they have to maximize their audience, not scale it back to appeal exclusively to sports fans. And that means athletes’ profiles and other features that have nothing to do with the sports. We’re not complaining that NBC doesn’t devote enough hours of coverage across its properties, just the broadcasting decisions it makes.

Comparing it to the World Cup or European Championships is apples and oranges. ESPN can give the big soccer tournaments that type of treatment for a few reasons.

1. It’s one sport and, apart from the final games in group play, there is never a situation where two games are played at the same time. Therefore, there are no decisions on when to cut away and cover something else.
2. It’s hours of programming in the morning and afternoon in the middle of the summer when they have nothing going on. So to show every game live and have a nightly Game Of The Day and a studio show doesn’t cut into their regular programming.
3. ABC/ESPN’s production costs for the soccer tournament are far lower. They don’t produce the feed for the world to use like NBC does. It’s just the broadcasting crews and a studio in Bristol.

Aaron continues:

If I were programming these Olympics for ABC/ESPN, here’s how I would do it.

ABC: Live coverage of all chick sports and bigtime live evening events like speed-skating and maybe some hockey. I’d also show highlight packages of major afternoon events BUT those highlights would be in addition, not in lieu of live coverage on cable.
ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU/ESPNclassic: They show nothing but live events AND the Olympics would be a great way to force cable companies to carry ESPNU-HD, a recent upgrade.
ESPN360 or whatever you brand the ESPN online Olympic presence: Tons of live stuff. The IOC makes the video available, the network should make it all available to us.

That’s a good start, but, again, there are a couple of problems. To suggest that ESPN give live coverage to all events is to ask it to compete against itself all day. This is why there’s little time overlap between CNBC, MSNBC, and USA’s coverage. Also, you’re asking for live coverage in primetime. I’m writing this on Wednesday night, when pro basketball is on ESPN and college hoops is on ESPN2. Do you think the NBA or NCAA is going to give away its contractually obligated slots, because you can’t put hockey on Classic or ESPNU.

I’m not very familiar with ESPN360 or what NBC is doing online for the Games, but I’m all for the idea of making everything available online and on demand.

And as for ABC, isn’t that pretty much what NBC is doing now?

The reason it isn’t already this way is that Ebersol and NBC hugely overbid on the Olympics at the expense of nearly all their other sports programming. ESPN wouldn’t need to do that. NBC is hemorrhaging money and can’t possibly bid as much as it did last time and ESPN is the singular agenda setter for American sports fans. If you want to truly exist as a sports event, it has to be on ESPN and on Sportscenter. It’s just a fact of life.

Agreed.

Also, ABC has a long history with the Olympics (Jim McKay, etc) that means it wouldn’t be that big of jump for the IOC to choose them.

The mention of McKay brings up a point about coverage. Say what you will about NBC, but even with them chopping up the events, their coverage treats the Olympics with a great deal of respect. Costas sets the tone as well as McKay did. Who does ABC/ESPN have that can do that? Bob Ley has the professionalism, but he’s got the personality of wet cement. Can you honestly see any of the alpha males that dominate ESPN’s talent pool talking about the sports that have little appeal here without smirking smugly?

Plus, elements of the IOC have been bristling at the amount of sway NBC holds with the IOC and the way it forces some strange start times (2008 swimming) in order the force stuff in to US primetime. I suspect large chunks of the IOC would take less money just to grab back on to the influence that NBC (and thus, the big bad United States) holds over the Olympic movement. The IOC would trade some cash for both it’s own power over the games and scheduling and the increased agenda-setting power that ESPN would immediately use to the games’ benefit.

Good points, but the other side of that is that the big, bad United States also has the Yankee Corporate Sponsorship Dollar that keeps the corrupt bigwigs at the IOC fed with fifteen-course meals served by naked supermodels. If the price goes down, it would likely have as much to do with the economic problems as an acknowledgment of Ebersol’s screw-up.

And anyway, the type of coverage you suggested above will require a greater investment on a network’s part. So what you’re looking for is an Olympics that costs more to produce while reducing the core audience. Even Ebersol wouldn’t intentionally do that.

I know Fox is also interested in going after the games. But, considering how they already dumb down football, baseball, and (to a lesser extent) NASCAR, I’d be terrified of what they’d do.

Joe Buck in the McKay/Costas role would force me to buy a new TV every day from throwing boots at it.

Your move, Aaron.