A LOOONG broadcast day began at 6a with, of all things, a final--Women’s Diving Synchro 3m Springboard Final, while daytime host Rebecca Lowe quickly moves things along. China owns the event, presumably because losing an event sends you off to work in the iPhone mines. The US team of Cook and Bacon (yes that’s their names) got the silver.
Off to Men’s Gymnastics qualifying. The announcers tell us about how the competitors literally shave skin off their hands to avoid generating callouses--blecch! The US squad hasn’t medaled since 2008 (and that was a surprise). What seems to happen is one bad performance throws them off early--and it happened again. NBC, of course, hates to see this, since many tune out when the USA isn’t in the mix. We’ll see if they can regroup.
Lowe hands off to Fareed who takes us to cycling time trials--and with the rain. there’s a lot of crashes. Off to swimming heats, including one for Katie Ledecky, in her fourth QISE--no surprise that she moved on. Moving on to beach volleyball, in front of the Eiffel Tower--it’s the men, so no thongs this time. We then take a break from action for a story about Ukrainian gymnasts, training in the midst of the war. A far cry from the classic “up close and personal” stories from the ABC era. This takes us to more Men’s Qualifying, with the heavy hitters (China, Japan) in the mix. The Russkies are not, as their team was kicked out due to doping.
After a QISE promo from Beyonce (aren’t we already watching?), Lowe and Fareed noted that the QISE swimming pool is more shallow than normal, which may be resulting in slower times. Why has this only been noticed now? Good work, QISE Committee! Speaking of the pool, off to Women’s Water Polo, where the US is dominant. Flavor Flav, official “hype man” of the team, does his thing. Then it’s Rugby--I have to say I’m impressed with the NBC’s variety of coverage. Shockingly, this is already the Rugby finals--and France wins their first gold. Didn’t really understand what was going on, but it seemed like fun. We get more of Rugby later in the day.
BTW--as you watch the coverage, keep in mind that most of the commentators are NOT in Paris. During COVID, NBC set up rows of tiny booths in their facility in New Jersey, with announcers watching the same video you watch and adding their thoughts, all before it goes to you “live”. Since then, Kabletown realizes it was far cheaper than sending and lodging talent onsite, most of whom you never see. Only the marquis events rate on location broadcasters.
Tirico then leads a preview of more Swimming--but has to vamp for awhile, which Tirico is very good at. You'll be hard pressed to find a more exuberant play--by-play analyst than Rowdy Gaines. They sometimes cut to him in the booth as he jumps around. Swimming elder statesman MIchael Phelps arrives to chat with Tirico--not a fan of the top knot. There's a quick feature on swimmer Nic Fink, whose wife is literally about to give birth back in the US, just before he swims a semi (he made it to the final). Back to Tirico and basketball vamping, then the relays--which translates to US v. Aussies. The US gets silver in the women's event, just eaking out the doping Chinese. After a computer animation showing how quickly the relay handoff has to go (the goal is 0.1 seconds between the first swimmer touching and the second launching), it's the men's event--the US takes it, with the nation's first gold in Paris. Oh, and Snoop's in the audience watching all the action.
Things wrap up with Women's Beach Volleyball (it must be colder there, so no bikinis) and more soggy cycling. Bizarrely, there are SPEED BUMPS on the road course, in addition to the slippery streets. There's a poor TV handoff at one point--they go to a correspondent on the course, then immediately cut to a quick shot of basketball, then go back just as the cycling guy stops talking. Must be an NBC director hates that guy. They cut back to b-ball again for the last 30 seconds on the game clock (so 20 minutes in real time).
I also checked out Peacock. There’s the Gold Zone, showing highlights. Wall to wall team sports on USA Network. A “Multiview” (think NFL Red Zone) splitting up the screen. And then there’s Kenan and Kevin, trying to convince us (poorly) that they aren’t reading a TelePrompter while riffing on coverage.
Speaking of Multiview--it does work pretty well, with up to four events going on at once. You move around to hear the corresponding audio, and another click takes it full screen. I picked a soccer/futbol match, which (and apologies to friends and family) doesn’t normally interest me. Then I see an option to view “Key Plays”, which creates a compilation of the goals and shots. Neat! Also caught some Surfing from Tahiti and an Epee match, with the home team taking the victory. Just wish you could pick the events being provided. Oh, and the “coverage will resume shortly” music sounds like an AI was given all the QISE music just to spew out something.
We’ll cover prime time (aka reruns) tomorrow.
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