Olympics: Ditch NBC; log onto Internet for coverage

This Friday marks the official start of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. But after the packaged coverage, the obnoxious "up-close and personal" interviews and the pharmacological nature of the modern games, the fact remains -- the Olympics are not as exciting as they used to be.

Rather than run the risk of having even a moment of dead air during a telecast, NBC will wait hours after the event is completed to broadcast the competitions.

Granted, it might be a little boring to wait for all the Slovenian divers to finish before we find out that the United States finished 15th and the gold went to a lanky Chinese 14-year-old, but it is better than the packaged coverage we will be getting.

In the age of the Internet, millions of computer users all over America are going to be logging on and getting up-to-the-minute results from Sydney.  Why are we going to wait for NBC's coverage, which will be broadcast up to 23 hours after the event is finished?

The networks are betting that that can be answered with the other insidious network ploy, the up-close and personal interview.

Film crews have been following around Olympians for months, composing brief biographical sketches to humanize the participants for the at-home viewer.

The problem arises when the films focus on a family tragedy or some overwhelming obstacle the athlete overcame to make the Olympics.

I do not want to disparage anyone's personal tragedy, and I think all the athletes should be applauded for even making the cut. I just hate being manipulated by NBC into feeling sympathy for the athletes, like the scene in "Die Hard 2" when the camera cuts to a shot of a kindly grandmother and a playful tot on a plane right before the villains blow it up.

Every athlete should be applauded and cheered on, not just the ones who lost an uncle right before the Olympics.

A typical Olympic-watching experience falls into a familiar pattern. We watch the coverage of an event that happened, even though we already know who won, just to witness the world record being broken.

But, instead, we are shown a biography of a woman from Kansas who overcame the heart-wrenching obstacle of moving from her small town to the big city a mere month before the Olympics.

Finally, with athletes from every country being banned for drug violations, the aura of amateur athletics has long since worn off. Sports Illustrated and Newsweek both devoted lengthy sections to the science of cheating at the Olympics.

If scientists devoted as much time and energy to curing disease as they do devising steroid-masking drugs, the world might have fewer illnesses to worry about. Given that testing is random and there is a high percentage of positive results, the number of athletes using who have not been caught is likely significant.

How can the process be improved? Hopefully, the adoption of high-definition television should improve that amount of coverage. If NBC had the technology to broadcast four streams simultaneously, viewers could pick exactly which event they wanted to watch and the network could worry less about dead air time between Slovenian divers.

The Internet also holds promise, but since NBC paid billions for exclusive coverage, web casts from Sydney seem unlikely.

Once web-casting technology improves, NBC or an affiliate could offer live streaming coverage of popular events, for those of us who would like, just once, to see all of the athletes from around the world compete in an event.

For these Olympics, I will be glued to a screen, following all the action from Sydney. It won't be NBC's coverage though, but the little box on my desk that gives me exactly what I want when I want it.

Yes, I will follow this Olympics completely on the Internet. And I'll try not to ruin the results for you, even though I'll know who won hours before the rest of you do.

Phil Witte is a staff writer for the Daily  Forty-Niner.