Posts Tagged ‘West’
Predicting Baseball’s Division and Wild Card Winners
February 17th, 2010Five Players That Need to Step Up for the San Diego Padres in 2010
February 16th, 2010Is NBC Giving the West Coast the Olympic Shaft with Tape Delays?
February 16th, 2010Imagine the joy that those living on the West Coast felt when Vancouver won the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Vancouver, B.C., is in the same time zone as the entire US West Coast is.
Finally, the West Coast would see something live other than the Academy Awards.
After the delayed coverage of the Summer Olympics in Beijing, all Americans, for the most part, were thrilled that our neighbors to the north had these games in the bag.
But for those living in the West, having Vancouver host the games was a bonus. We would have up-to-the-minute updates on all of the sports and not have to read about the results in newspapers or on online web sites with spoiler alerts dotting the pages.
No more having to stay up til midnight, no more shutting our eyes and ears, or leaving the room when TV announcers warned us in advance they were letting us know who won the ladies figure skating long program.
It's all good now, right?
Wrong.
NBC has delayed all live coverage to the West Coast. Why?
In 2008, Dick Ebersol answered that very question:
"It's live on the East Coast and in the Central time zone, which is roughly 81 to 82 percent of all the households in the United States. Historically, we have always shown the Olympics on tape on the west coast. We have repeatedly done significant testing or polling, if you want to call it that, on the west coast. And they have told us - the viewers have repeatedly told us that the vast majority of them, well in excess of 80 percent, want to see the Olympics when they're available to see the Olympics.
They don't want to see the key events of the day happening at 4 or 5 o'clock their time. They want to get home and watch them, and that's why there's a delay on the west coast. And you know what? Strangely enough, in every Olympics that I have done, going back to 1992, every Olympics, the audience on the west coast over-indexes against all the other regions in the United States. They love sports so much, and they know when they want to watch it, and that's in prime time." (via sfgate.com )
Well, Ebersol makes some decent points except for one small problem—technology has changed everything in the last two years.
With Twitter and other social media updating world events within minutes of the actual event's occurrence, we now know the results of anything having to do with political elections or sports' scores within seconds.
So why tape delay the Olympics to the west coast? It makes no sense.
California had to stay up to midnight to watch an Opening Ceremony that was over around 10:30 local time. We all heard via the Internet that one of the cauldrons malfunctioned and that Gretzky was a torch bearer.
NBC ruined the anticipation of the Opening Ceremonies for the most populated state in the country.
Bode Miller just won a bronze in downhill around 1 pm local time on Monday, so should I really wait for NBC to get its head out of the sand and show it at around 9 pm local time? Don't bother NBC—I'll watch it online.
Two hours prior to the airing of the Olympics' Sunday night coverage, we knew the Chinese figure skating duo had kicked everyone else's butts. The result?
We didn't watch your Sunday night show—we watched Big Love instead. And we watched the HBO-East version so we could see it at 6 pm—HBO gives viewers a choice of when they want to watch something. Why can't NBC?
Why can't we call Ebersol out for the real reason NBC tape delays the Olympics? NBC cares more about capturing prime-time ratings (7-11 pm) than it does in delivering a product that everyone can and should see live.
NBC, a dying network, chooses to punish those on the West Coast and right now, the masses are arising and protesting silently.
No one I know is watching the Olympics—they are going to YouTube or other sites to see the video of their favorite player or sport.
They aren't waiting for the outdated peacock to fan its feathers and show stuff hours old because this is an instant gratification society fueled by real-time technology that sates its patrons.
Just like the local 4, 5 and 6 pm newscasts on the verge of extinction due to the CNNs and FOX News 24 hour, non-stop, breaking updates, so will NBC's outdated practice of tape delaying the West Coast.
How absurd is it that a freestyle mogul competition is live at 5 pm local time, and Californians, Oregonians, and Washingtonians—some living just hours south of the event—have to wait three hours to watch it on NBC while New Yorkers watch it live?
Ebersol needs to get with the times and change the format immediately. His views are outdated and serve no purpose other than to use the west coast as a shill for prime time ratings.
Put all Olympic sports on live at 4 pm, then rerun it again at 7 pm. Or, do what HBO does for its more popular programs and do OnDemand Olympics.
Everybody wins, and the network might make even more money.
2010 NBA All-Star Game: Denver Nuggets Duo Represents Team Well
February 15th, 2010Carmelo Anthony was challenged by the Denver Nuggets and Western Conference head coach George Karl to take the All Star game more seriously ala Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Dwayne Wade.
On Sunday night, it was clear that message reached the superstar as Anthony was on fire from the game's start.
Melo scored easily by driving the lane and grabbing offensive rebounds for put-backs. And during a scoring run in the first quarter, Anthony sank a three-pointer and finished the first quarter with 13 points, five rebounds, and two assists.
Melo didn’t get back into the game until there were five minutes left in the half, but he managed to put in two more buckets, two layups. At halftime Anthony was the leading scorer with 17 points, six more than James, to go along with with eight rebounds and two dimes.
At the half, Anthony was interviewed by TNT’s Craig Sager and told him, “It looks easy; it’s not easy. We put a lot of work into our craft. We’re out here having fun. We want to win, the West wants to win. I hate losing.”
In the second half, the West was down 76-69 to start, and Melo kept playing hard in the third quarter. He scored on another layup and another on an alley-oop dunk.
Melo got his double-double on a put-back dunk with three minutes to go in the game. He was at 27 points, 10 rebounds, and two assists at that point. But the East was still leading, and LeBron and Wade were both pushing for MVP honors as well.
As the game came down the stretch, Melo got the final shot to win the game, but it was a leaning three pointer that missed short off the front rim. With the made shot, Anthony would have definitely been the MVP of the All Star game, but it wasn’t to be. Still, Melo really performed well, and he was easily the best on the West.
The East won the game 141-139, and Dwayne Wade with his 28 points and 11 assists, won the MVP. And while the outcome was disappointing for Western fans, it was the best All Star game in recent memory without a doubt.
While Melo was the West’s MVP, Chauncey Billups performed up to an All Star level as well. He went five-for-eight from downtown, with five assists and a steal. Five of his 17 points were huge for the West as Mr. Big Shot lived up to his nickname once again. Billups hit a three from the wing to keep the Western Conference down only four points before hitting the game-tying bucket with only one minute to go in the game.
In all, the Nuggets duo attributed for 44 of the West’s 139 points, almost a third in total, certainly making a huge impact on the game.
Both George Karl and Nuggets fans should be bursting with pride over the two as Denver gets back into their regular season Thursday night against LeBron and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
All Star Game Notes: The crowd of 108,713 at Cowboys Stadium was the largest to ever view a basketball game in the world. But there was another World Record set during the weekend in Dallas as Dwight Howard made a miraculous shot. During the East’s practice on Friday, Howard sank an unbelievable three-quarter court shot, while sitting down! Guinness was in attendance, and the young center posed for a picture and accepted his award right on the court.
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