Bridesmaid yet again

Buried amidst the more pressing matters in the World this week, the United States Olympic Committee decided who would be their official bid for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.

It’s not San Francisco.

it stings to see us passed over yet again.

San Francisco first seriously flirted with the Summer Olympics when there was a move to bid for the 1996 Games. Atlanta was eventually awarded the Games despite a huge controversy since that was the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympic movement and many considered it a lock for Athens, the city which hosted the first Olympics of the modern movement.

With Atlanta winning the 1996 Summer Games and Salt Lake City being awarded the 2002 Winter Games, it was felt there was little chance they could win in 2004 or 2008. (By that time Athens had already been awarded the 2000 Games).

A San Francisco bid was one of the front runners for the 2012 Games, only to lose out to New York. (New York eventually lost out to London).

Not to be deterred, a bid was formulated for the 2016 Summer Games. This bid had issues, particularly revolving around where the main stadium would be.

Levi’s Stadium was not quite yet a glint in Jed York’s eye, and this was several years after the DeBartolo debacle had collapsed in a heap of ash. This would have brought a brand new stadium and hotel development to Candlestick Point, and kept the San Francisco 49ers in the City for decades to come.

This issue of a centralized stadium eventually caused San Francisco to be withdrawn from USOC consideration.

I can understand that. Consider the awesomeness that was the Bird Nest Stadium of the 2008 Beijing Games.

Now it was hoped this most recent bid (2024) would be the charm. In fact, if you’d asked people involved with the bidding process earlier this week, San Francisco and Los Angeles were considered the front runners. Alas, but we’re sitting on the side lines once again.

To be honest, I think the main stadium was, yet again, the Achilles heel. When will they learn?

The 2024 bid had plans for a $350 million pop-up stadium, located in Brisbane. This temporary facility would be dismantled after the Games concluded, presumably to be sold and shipped off to Lord knows where for reuse. But, that’s a fair chunk of change to be spent for such a short period of timed.

Before anybody says how they’re so happy because all that money could now be spent on better things…don’t bother. The plan was for the 2024 Olympic Games to be completely funded through private monies, unlike the 1996 Americas Cup Races, which cost the City of San Francisco and Port of San Francisco about $11.5 million.

I haven’t heard why Levi’s Stadium wasn’t considered. After all, the games could take place before the San Francisco 49ers NFL season. Perhaps it was the thought that the marque events, the Opening and Closing ceremonies, would be taking place in Santa Clara?

If that’s the reason, it must’ve really stuck in someone’s craw when a last minute suggestion would have placed those events across the Bay in Oakland, inside a new stadium built at the Coliseum Complex. That stadium would be permanent, and serve as a long-term home for the Oakland Raiders.

I’m sure the actual reasons will dribble out over the next few weeks. But, it won’t surprise me to hear that was a big part of it.

Congratulation to Boston. A nice thing about their bid is that it’s going to be fairly compact, with most events happening right there in the Boston metropolitan area.

Still, Boston 2024 is going to have some stiff competition. Cities have until September 15, 2015 to submit their bids. As of right now, Rome is the only city that has submitted it’s paperwork. However, bids are expected from Berlin, Paris, and Istanbul.

Additionally, there are at least a half dozen other cities from around the globe which have been rumored to be considering a bid.

Personally, I’m torn. As much as I’d love to see an American city get the bid, it would likely mean no San Francisco bids for at least another 20 years.

Next year’s Summer Olympics are taking place in Rio de Janeiro. They will be the first Olympics to take place in South America.

Despite having a handful of bids over the years, an African city has never hosted the Olympics. However, there has been talk of bids coming from Nairobi, Casablanca, Durban or Johannesburg.

If the money can be found to put forth a strong bid, it’d be wonderful to see that fifth Olympic ring represent the Olympics happening on the African continent, and not just that her athletes are taking part.

The winning city for the 2024 Summer Olympics will be selected in 2017, at the Lima, Peru International Olympic session.

Olympic detox…Part Deux

 
Well, it's time for my biennial case of withdrawal from watching nearly wall-to-wall Olympic coverage for the last couple of weeks. Last time it was London. This time it's Sochi.

The Winter Olympics have always been my favorite. Don't get me wrong. I can just as easily get lost in the Summer Games. But, it's the Winter Games that I'm especially fond of. Not sure if it's the hockey, the skiing, or just the scenes of clean white snow that seems so pure, especially back growing up as a 10-year-old kid.

Up until 1998, we were pretty much stuck with whatever they were broadcasting on NBC (or CBS and ABC before that). Every Olympiad would add additional hours of coverage. But, it was still only a single channel.

Then, in 2002, coverage expanded exponentially by use of their family of channels; namely adding MSNBC, CSNBC. More channels equaled more coverage. Simple as that.

However, that was yet another proverbial drop in the bucket. As the Internet reached its maturity, they realized they could offer a virtual cornucopia of coverage by streaming events.

I was able to watch the local cable channel on the TV, while streaming something else on my computer. This included some sports not normally covered on broadcast TV.

You could probably count on one hand the amount of hours devoted to curling in 1998. Now, with streaming, you could watch whole matches, and ALL matches if your heart desired it!

Absolute Olympic Nirvana!

But, with NBC's ever expanding coverage came the realization that NBC's coverage could be pretty bad, leaning towards events where Americans had a good chance of taking a medal, and flipping from event to event without regard to continuity. And don't forget the commercials!

Last time around, during the London Olympics, I decided to let technology take its course, and add the BBC's coverage of the London Summer Olympics to my viewing regimen.

Absolute night and day when compared to what NBC offered. Mind you, I still watched NBC. However, my laptop was hooked into the BBC on a daily basis.

It wasn't perfect because if I joined a live event and then scrolled back to the beginning, I'd lose the feed all of a sudden when the live program ended. Then I'd have to wait till the event was cataloged before I could see how it ended.

Still, they were full events, with ALL competitors, and was commercial free! I think I watched every route of archery in 2012.

But, things were a bit complicated this time around because I did away with my television cable package in late 2012.

This meant that I only had access to the local NBC affiliate. This also meant NO hockey coverage from Sochi since they usually aired that on the NBC Sports Channel, a cable only channel.

I think the final insult was that NBC would allow anybody to watch their streaming coverage. However, if you could not prove you were subscribed to a cable or satellite provider, your signal was abruptly cut after 30 minutes, forcing you to log back in again.

With that in mind, I returned to alternate methods to get my Olympic fix. Unfortunately, the VPN I signed up for this time seemed to have problems giving me a quality signal from the BBC.

There were a couple of options to take off to the Great White North, and so I experienced my first Canadian television, other than when I used to watch Hockey Night in Canada with the NHL Network.

While the CBC does have commercials, they don't seem to be as numerous as on American television. Plus, I could stream all events on their website, only I didn't have to directly prove I was Canadian or have a Canadian cable subscription.

For the most part, the announcers were very well informed and could hold a candle to any of their American counterparts. And they knew when to simply shut up and let the pictures do the talking.

I was able to watch the whole Opening Ceremonies, and watch them live.

Not only did NBC not offer the festivities live, NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus insulted the intelligence of every American viewer, suggesting "…the colorful ceremonies would not make sense without description."

Mr. Lazarus kindly explain why you couldn't have aired it live with commentators, just like every other event you streamed…including the Closing Ceremonies!!

So this time around I never did watch any NBC coverage. It was all CBC, and even though I had started watching events live, it eventually devolved to all tape delayed as a few days of watching till the wee hours of the morning started wrecking havoc with my sleep cycle.

I will have to admit, there were times I wanted to throttle my computer, especially during any US hockey game coverage.

An American women's game didn't go by without having to hear about the "battling Lamoureux Sisters" or how Jocelyne Lamoureux played with a chip on her shoulder and liked to "mix 'em up." (a reference to the two fights that occurred during pre-Olympic action with Canada).

Then there were Glenn Healy's idiotic remarks, such as that Team Sweden didn't know who they were playing against, when referring to Sydney Crosby. This despite the fact that all but one Swedish player came from NHL teams.

Technologically, signal quality did vary from time to time, especially if I was using my laptop over a wireless connection.

I will readily admit I missed NBC's traditional end of the Olympics highlight reel set to Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

Every time I'd watch it I'd well up in tears because of the realization the Games were over and it would be a couple years before they'd be on again. (It even happened watching the YouTube clip linked above and thinking how 1996 seems just like yesterday).

Also missing was all the cultural fluff. By steaming the events it became all about the events, and not the locale. I do enjoy the cultural and historical aspects we're sometimes given, though in moderation.

So now comes the two year wait before the 2016 Summer Games, in Rio de Janeiro. With Rio being only four hours ahead of San Francisco, I'll be bombarded with lots more live coverage during a more sane part of the day. Of course, I'm sure there will be new unforeseen challenges.

I just have 892 days to figure exactly how to accomplish it all!

I have such a BIG hangover today

I have such a BIG hangover right now. No alcohol was involved. I'm dealing with Olympic Overload and withdrawal.

Every two years, I curl up on the couch, remote in hand, to watch as much Olympic coverage as I possibly can, including many events I probably wouldn't think about during most of the waking hours.

The first Games I remember watching were the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics. I can still remember the family sitting around the old Hitachi set as Olga Korbut flipped and flew around the gymnastic apparatus; and Mark Spitz giving new meaning to Aqua Man! And who can forget the big Soviet "coal miner" turned weightlifter Vasiliy Alekseyev, with his huge torso shaped like a beer barrel.

Unfortunately, I can also vaguely remember the horrific Munich Massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches. Fortunately, I don't think I realized what was happening at the time since my parents were pretty good at shielding my sister and I from things like that.

1976 marked the first year I really had any say in whether I'd watch. I say that with tongue in cheek as the Winter Olympics took place in Austria! How could I not watch? My grandmother was born in Austria. I marveled at what I thought was the final Downhill run of the day as Franz Klammer flew down Patscherkofe to win Gold.

I guess I was too young to realize this was a big taste of tape delay and editing for evening Prime Time. We never saw all 74 competitors, including ones from such winter sports hotbeds as Iran and Turkey! ABC treated us to only the Top 15 ranked skiers. They tightly packaged it and I was happy to see what they allowed me to see.

By 1976 I was hooked. I can still remember the shiver when I found out Moscow would host the 1980 Games as my other grandmother was from Russia. For a while I actually posted a drawing of Moscow Olympic symbol with the number of days and the weather on our fridge. I can also remember the depression when I heard that the USA would boycott those Games due to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and that NBC would not broadcast them either.

1980 was my first experience of an American Olympic Games, with the Winter Games in Lake Placid, NY. All I have to say is USA! USA! USA! and visions of the Miracle on Ice game probably pop into your head.

* * *

From that point forward, the television coverage expanded at an astonishing rate; from 54 hours in 1980 to over 5000 hours for the recent London, which included the first major use of the Internet to stream events that would otherwise not get televised.

Unfortunately, the hangover came, not only from the amount of hours I watched, but from frustration with NBC's coverage.

It is true that NBC had more live coverage than ever before, especially relying in the CNBC, MSNBC and NBCSN cable networks. However, it is also true that those of us not on the eastern seaboard were treated to tape delays of the supposed live events.

With the explosion of social media, there was a really good chance we'd find out about the results even before they were telecast. This lead one friend to tweet that "The Internet is ruining my Olympics!"

I started watching the internet live streams of the events  the first day. It was awesome! I watched as much archery in the first day as I'd watched in all my previous Olympic viewing COMBINED. There were no commercials; just a banner ad at the top of the browser.

On about the third day it changed. I was greeted with an ad for an upcoming Will Farrell movie. I wrote it off since I had just logged in. HOWEVER, it the same ad popped up about EVERY FIVE MINUTES.

The next day a Citibank ad with Meb Keflezighi droned on. I sent an angry tweet suggesting I'd seen him more with that hour's ads than I probably would during his actual event!

At this point, I started seeing people commenting about the BBC's coverage. No commercials, streaming of every event live, or available in their entirety shortly after completion; and what could be more fitting than British coverage of a British Olympics? I thought, "What's not to like about that? I'm in!"

Well, yes and no. You see, broadcast rights are sold on a national basis, and since I'm in the United States, the only feeds they want me to watch are those from NBC.

I loaded iPlayer and was greeted by a warning page telling me BBC video streaming is only available to residents of the United Kingdom.

When I had searched for iPlayer, I noticed ads proclaiming, "Watch the BBC Olympic Coverage from…anywhere."

Each Internet connection has what's called an IP address. You can think of this as your computer's address, which includes city, state and zip code of where your computer is connecting from. The BBC servers saw my California connection and said "No way, Jose!" 

Those ads were basically for companies offering proxy servers that would allow you to connect to them (for a price). Think of that as being a hotel room where your computer is taking a vacation. Once you connected to their proxy, your computer would then send out an IP address with a British location, and iPlayer would say, "Welcome!"

Coverage of every shot; every stroke, every step! Not just the top athletes, but those who only came to participate. It was INCREDIBLE…when it didn't crash. Unfortunately, it did fairly often. Sometimes it would recover, but more often I was rudely greeted with a message that the feed appeared to not be working, please try again later.

Additionally, if I should decide to watch the event from the beginning, the feed would arbitrarily end with no warning, and the message would say it should be available shortly. In all their British properness they were nice and tidy and ended "recording" the stream immediately upon end of of the event. At least NBC's recording continued for quite some time before ending the live feed.

Sometimes, when I restarted the feed, I'd inadvertently find out the results because they have chapter bookmarks at the bottom. I ruined several beach volleyball matches that way.

By the penultimate day, I had run out of time on the proxy server so I was back to watching NBC. In case you haven't heard, they butchered the Closing Ceremonies pretty badly, not to mention sticking a sitcom episode and the late local news in the end, which delayed the final 10 minutes of the program, the anticipated set from The Who. Makes ZERO sense, and they were taken to task in social media.

* * *

So what are my suggestions for NBC to win me back?

Offer ALL events streaming live online, including the ceremonies. Don't block the more popular events once they're complete so you can save them for Prime Time. Also, I'd be willing to see a banner at the top of the browser page at all times if it meant no commercial breaks that take away from the events. If you must have interruptions, will you please have someone watching the feed, and only insert ads at times when there's no action.

Assuming your cable lineup is still the same 500 days from now, continue portioning out coverage over multiple channels. This coverage should be live, with taped coverage of some events during Prime Time.

I cringe at the idea of tape delayed coverage, but NBC has to make money somehow, and Prime Time advertising is where the best money comes from. They don't have the luxury of the BBC, where all UK households must pay a TV License fee to watch live television.

It sounds funny to say you need a license to watch TV, but it's really nothing more than a tax to pay for public television, something the British have less of a problem doing. The fee is about $228.

Since British public broadcasting is done on a national scope, with only a half dozen channels, they can get away with it. This would never work in the US, with over 1200 stations across the nation, and public funding is a hot button issue.

NBC will need to recognize they need to ratchet back on how many commercials they run. With the World moving to more and more content being available by the web, it's far easier for viewers to turn to alternative methods to get what they want.

NBC will also need to reign in their announcers. Many are great. However, some try to be cute and say stuff that sounds dumb, like when Madagascar was described as an island where a group of movie animals come from, nothing more.

I'm eager to see if NBC takes public comment to heart. But, just in case, my computer is ready to book a vacation in the UK again.