No Live Track!!?? Why don't we do SOMETHING about it??

Live track sucks. Too much down time between events. I hate seeing the 100 guys line up for the third time after two false starts every damn heat. I love that nbc will record it and hopefully edit out some of the bullshit. There should never be live track.

Bumped, forwarded, & emailed.

Let NBC know.

The reason swimming and gymnastics are live in the US is because the US is one of the few places in the world where its major viewing. Track is the flagship sport of the Olympics and the IAAF is not going to allow its competitions to be made a mockery like swimming and gymnastics are.

To state NBC is the problem is to be too US-centric. We can't always host the Games and that means sometimes it makes for poor timing for us to view them.

Would you really like the track events to start at 8 am and be done by 11:30 am if you are an athlete and you are aiming for a peak performance? That is the local time swimming and gymnastics athletes are forced to compete in Beijing. Lets get real here people.

The complaint isn't to have track aired live in primetime; the complaint is to have them aired live.

Great idea. I sent them my thoughts.

NOOOOOOOOOOO! live track is horrible! why waste 10 minutes to watch a 10 second race? get that 10 second race in 20 seconds so that they can show more of the distance races and not feel like they are hogging all the coverage to track. Efficiancy=more coverage

No live track! NBC already knows this doesnt work

Again the only way to air them live is to either have NBC broadcast at the current time which would put them in the early morning hours depending on time zone of 2 am to 7 am or to have the actual start time be moved to the late morning hours in China. Come on guys, this attitude is how Americans get such a negative view by many around the world. The world doesn't center around us. If Chicago wins the bid for 2016 should we put the track finals from 8 am to 11:30 am so that the Chinese (world's most populous nation) can view in their prime-time?

Making the events available on-line is a start live is a start and much better than the past 100 years of Olympic coverage. Just 30 years ago less than 3 hours a day of all sports was broadcast to the US from the Olympics.

If you want to gripe about track coverage perhaps you should consider of all the meets on TV this year including the Olympic Trials how many of you and your track-friendly fans actually watched all or most of the coverage? I typically find that over 80-90% of those currently participating in the sport as athletes and coaches do not even view the sport even for meets such as Pre and the OTs.

sprite wrote:

NOOOOOOOOOOO! live track is horrible! why waste 10 minutes to watch a 10 second race? get that 10 second race in 20 seconds so that they can show more of the distance races and not feel like they are hogging all the coverage to track. Efficiancy=more coverage

No live track! NBC already knows this doesnt work

But when it's live, they don't cut away to softball during the 10k.

hell, they could at least stream it online. NBC has EXCLUSIVE rights to it and their isn't ANY online coverage. Why not stream it live? Or at least let someone else stream it live...

Agreed. I wouldn't care about the lack of live TV coverage - I'm not really too concerned about whether the average member of the US is watching the 100m live or on tape delay the next day. But dammit I want to see it the instant it happens - so put it on the freaking internet. It's bound to be cheap compared to the millions in advertising dough they are rolling in.

Let them know that this is ridiculous.

For you all griping about the "live" coverage, just do what I do: don't go on the internet the day of a race you want to see. Then you don't see the results during the day, and when you watch the taped coverage at night, it seems live. Magic! I can't see how you all can watch events during the day anyway. I'm too busy at work.

Not sure what the track schedule is but I watched fencing and cycling live last night and then parts of it again today (did not stay up to see the finish of the road race).

I was pretty impressed with the streaming for what I saw. Kinda weird not to have commentary though and the "chat" was poor.

Having it during primetime is a luxury and I'm not complaining about that because I know the races happen when they happen but I'll wake up at 4 am if I have to!! Listening to the commentary during the (super delayed) opening ceremonies when Jamaica came in, Bob Costas just went off about how intense the 100m final is going to be and all I could say is "why isn't this live!?" All you fair-weather fans can watch it taped-delayed, just provide something for us true fans who want to see it when it actually happens, and who want to experience the moment when it happens. I mean, what are they going to interrupt at 4 am!? An infomercial??

If the so called runners and track stars on this message board don't care to see the greats hit the track live...then what does the rest of the population think.If you don't want to see these greats run live then who are all you people on this message board. Incredible.

So far the CBC has had all the preliminary events online, live. This will likely be the same for track and field. I had ordered RDS to be able to see the local athletes, but looks like I won't be needing it.

NBC made the right call. No live track means that you will probably get to see just about every second of the distance finals and most of the semis. No false starts for the 100 and 200 shown. They can edit and package it much better. Besides, live track means a lot of the events will be going on at 4AM here, and no one is going to watch that anyway.

It also means that they can get the names right and not argue about who the runners are, as we have seen several times in the past.

I am letting NBC know. I am not going out of my way to watch the Olympic Coverage. If I happen to turn on the TV and surf and something of interest comes on, I might watch it. If they break away for commercials or other non interesting events, I just change the channel.

I am not sure how they (whomver they were) could get it so right the last Olympics (example: complete 5K and 10K uninterrupted live coverage) and blow it so badly this time around.

I don't care if the big events are in the middle of our night. I can record them or get up and watch them but this prime time, over commercialized approach always loses out.

So I just go into my 1980-1992 mode and don't go out of my way.

why do you guys care if it is live? Seriously do you have any other reason other than they are putting track in the backround?

sprite wrote:

why do you guys care if it is live? Seriously do you have any other reason other than they are putting track in the backround?

Are you really asking? Would you want to watch the World Series the day after it happened even though while you're watching the game you know if something really crazy had happened you would have heard about it. It's always better live.

To the other poster, I would definitely be up at 4 am for some races.

Bump. Keep this going. If we don't say anything, NBC will think it's cool and will keep it up.