NBC won't win any medals for its coverage of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver this year. Its strategy of withholding online coverage to encourage people to watch on television during prime time appears to be working, though, at least when the Americans win lots of medals. The company is taking a walloping from viewers who object to the network's tape delay of the games, undertaken to sell more expensive ads during at night.

In these hyper-connected times, people are finding out who won a medal before they have a chance to watch, and the immediacy that makes live sports programming so compelling is lost, to an extent. Worse, NBC expects to lose hundreds of millions of dollars televising the Olympics despite this ploy. Before the games got underway, NBC said it expects to lose a quarter of a billion dollars on broadcasting the event, because a weak ad market will fail to offset a whopping $820 million in licensing and production costs.

As for watching the games online, NBCOlympics.com offers a relatively scant selection of live events, about 400 hours according to various estimates. It showed 2,200 hours of live events online from Bejing two years ago. And even if you want to watch what they're showing online, you can only do so if your ISP paid the required licensing fee.

There's no way for you to watch for free if your ISP didn't pay, and we were not able to log in to NBCOlympics.com using our Time Warner password, so in at least one case, a subscriber to an ISP that paid up is not able to watch.

Meanwhile, NBCOlympics.com itself post the results live, well in advance of the taped broadcasts, adding another potential spoiler to an already heady mix. And while you can follow the athletes on Twitter through NBC's website, skier Jake Zamansky used this forum to post "Can't wait to see how bad NBC covers the ski racing today" as noted by Deadspin.

 The value of a sports broadcast declines precipitously over time, which is why sports leagues don't have to worry about file sharing networks eroding their businesses the way other video producers do. And that's why so many people are mystified and frustrated by NBC's tape-delay strategy. A quick Twitter search reveals countless viewer complaints and articles about those complaints.

Nonetheless, NBC is sticking to its guns, with vice president of sports communications Chris McCloskey telling the Boston Globe, "You can't please everybody, but we try to serve the greater good."

NBC's attempt to cover the exorbitant cost of broadcasting the Olympics by forcing people to watch during prime time, or not at all, might upset millions of viewers, but it appears to be having the desired effect of boosting ratings when the Americans win.

According to Media Week's Marc Berman, news of Lindsey Vonn's downhill victory spread online in advance of its taped broadcast last night, which is why so many people watched.

Indeed, on Wednesday night, 30.1 million Americans tuned in to watch their countrymen capture six medals, while only 18.4 million watched American Idol during the same hour, according to Nielsen (AP). On Tuesday night, when Americans took home three, American Idol bested the Olympics by 4 million viewers.

See Also:

• Advertisers Looking Beyond NBC Online for Olympics Opportunities
  
• Olympic Theme Endures Weird Road to Fame
• New Olympic Event: NBC, Yahoo Battle Over the Numbers
• NBC%u2019s Plan for Olympics on Web: Everything But Live Events
  
• Comcast Buys NBC, Clouding Online TV%u2019s Future

 

Are you tired of finding out who won online from other sources, and then having to wait to watch? What network could do it better and how?

By Libby Sander

The Boise State University Broncos don't shy away from the unconventional. After all, they're the only team in college football to play on a bright blue Astroturf field.

On Wednesday, the university's athletic director unveiled an unusual plan for raising money to build and renovate the institution's athletics facilities: The Broncos will sell 200,000 shares in a new nonprofit corporation, Boise State Broncos Inc., at $100 each. The anticipated $20-million in proceeds will pay for the construction of new and renovated athletics facilities.

So far, the Broncos have sold 1,200 shares, mostly to members of the new company's 12-person board.

"We are dependent on our supporters," the athletic director, Gene Bleymaier, said in a written statement. "If we are to continue the success we are enjoying now we must generate new revenues to pay for coaches' salaries, scholarships and facilities. Owning Bronco stock allows everyone to help us reach those goals."

Among the projects on the wish list is an end-zone expansion on the south end of Bronco Stadium, as well as new locker rooms for men's and women's basketball.

Bronco stock will not be publicly traded, will not pay any dividends, and the shares will not appreciate in value. Owning shares is not linked to seating privileges, either.

Instead, shareholders will receive a certificate stating their 'ownership,' and may participate in annual shareholders' meetings. They will also have the chance to vote for members of the new company's board of directors, and the cost of the shares is tax-deductible.

Though unusual, if not unheard of, in college sports, the Broncos' plan is not without precedent elsewhere. The NFL's Green Bay Packers took a similar approach in 1997, and now have more than 112,000 fans who own 4.7 million shares in the franchise.

And Boise State isn't alone in thinking creatively about new revenue streams. Big-time college sports programs, which incur significant expenses from their operations, athletics scholarships, and costly capital projects, are always looking for new ways to make money.

The University of California at Berkeley, for instance, recently embarked on a $1-billion campaign for its sports endowment. Berkeley's campaign is unusual not only in its ambitious goal but also in its approach. The campaign relies largely on the money derived from long-term seat licenses for football—not private donations—to boost the endowment. (Most major athletics programs typically use seat licenses to finance capital projects, not endowments.)

And Oklahoma State University raised eyebrows two years ago when it announced it had secured $280-million for capital projects and a sports endowment by taking out $10-million life insurance policies on 28 of its athletics boosters.

Boise State's approach has already generated buzz among some fans. As one put it, writing on One Bronco Nation Under God, a blog for the university's football fans, "I already feel like I have partial 'ownership' of this program. Now, I can donate another hundred bucks (which is far less than my usual annual gift to the university) and get a cool certificate for my wall. Count me in."

The Division III third-place game is an anachronism and its time has passed. So it’s good to see it go.

Although indeed, sometimes the third-place game is a spirited, wide-open entertaining affair, it cannot be ignored that the game often features one, if not two teams that truly don’t want to be there. Someone has had their heart ripped out the night before, must come back for a walk-through the next morning (though often a coach will pass on the team’s allotted time) and play a game which doesn’t do much except allow one team to go home with an extra win.

Of course, someone goes home with two losses at the end of a season that should be celebrated.

So, for the NABC to step in and do something immensely positive for Division III men’s basketball is a great step forward for our game. We hope the WBCA will consider doing something for women’s basketball as well.

This will give an additional 16 or so players who never would have gotten the Salem experience a chance to perform in front of Division III fans and be recognized. Fans who drove to southwestern Virginia to see their team play will have reason to stick around and see their best senior player or players in action the next day. And they’ll get to see a bunch of All-Americans on the floor as well, giving some context to fans who don’t get to watch D-III games on television.

It’s a win-win. And I hope it stays a part of the Salem experience for many years to come, like the NABC has done for Division I and Division II.

Having seen the old third place game in person, it will be nice to see players that actually want to be on the court in future years.