Olympic Events: Held Mid-Day?

[kwanfan1818]

Neither people nor GDP is relevant in itself: it's the spending power of whatever demographics the advertisers are targeting.

Pacifica

 

[jiejie]

My liking would be for the figure skating to be held at 7pm GMT, but I understand that it would not be optimum for the skaters to start their competition at 4am in Korea. Or maybe I should say “hey skaters have to get up early to practice so what difference does it make?”

Holding figure skating at 10am is unprecedented in recent Olympic history. Of course, the IOC and local organisers share some of the blame for agreeing to it, but we all know the sheer arrogance of suggesting it came from NBC. If that makes me anti-American to call them out on their arrogant twattiness then so be it.

You're anti-American all over this board, not just this thread. I doubt you'd be having any issues if it was a major European media company...or Japanese television...that had paid the big moolah for primary broadcasting rights and then set up some of the premier events for their home audience. As you admit above, you're basically bellyaching because you're personally inconvenienced. Your worry about the athletes rings hollow.

There's a lot that is unprecedented about Pyeongchang 2018 in "recent Olympic history." The figure skaters having to compete in the morning is a minor issue in the scheme of things.

 

[allezfred]

Is there another sport that typically holds competitions at 10 am that could be scheduled during that time?
Which one do you recommend?

I’m not sure what your point is in asking those questions. Sports are held concurrently at all Olympic Games. If they weren’t, the Olympics would take two months to finish.

You're anti-American all over this board, not just this thread. I doubt you'd be having any issues if it was a major European media company...or Japanese television...that had paid the big moolah for primary broadcasting rights and then set up some of the premier events for their home audience. As you admit above, you're basically bellyaching because you're personally inconvenienced. Your worry about the athletes rings hollow.

I think your reading comprehension rings hollow as I have stated on many previous occasions even in this thread that the time is BETTER for me to watch as I won’t have to take any annual leave off to watch the figure skating live (because watching it tape-delayed sucks). I will have to adjust my sleep patterns, but hey ho.

That doesn’t change the facts that NBC are arrogant twats. The difference between American and Japanese/European broadcasters is that the latter actually show the sport LIVE no matter the time zone.

I’m going to blow your mind now by letting you know that some of those Japanese and European broadcasters don’t even have commercial breaks.

There's a lot that is unprecedented about Pyeongchang 2018 in "recent Olympic history." The figure skaters having to compete in the morning is a minor issue in the scheme of things.

Yes, the convenience and preference of the actual Olympic athletes is a minor issue. It’s not like they are the actual reason for the Olympics innit.

 

[cheremary]

Okay, so there are more people there. But the GDP of California is ranked 5th or 6th in the world. Spending power isn't just people.

I don’t think it’s simply an issue of spending power. If you had something live at 8pm PST, that’s 11pm EST, and the entire East Coast would be asleep or going to sleep in the middle of the program. Even if you started at 6pm PST (also inconvenient because probably a lot of West Coasters would still be at work or commuting), that’s already 9pm EST.

 

[Skittl1321]

Yes, the convenience and preference of the actual Olympic athletes is a minor issue. It’s not like they are the actual reason for the Olympics innit.

They might have been the original reason (though I'm not even sure that is true...it was about the countries, not the athletes)- but the Olympics is a commercial event, plain and simple. It exists because sponsors want it to.

 

[WildRose]

In Canada they show the Olympics live, regardless of the time the events take place. In the evening during prime time they show a hilight package and recap. Works just fine for us. Personally, I think the US overpackages their coverage, and I don’t like watching it.

 

[allezfred]

They might have been the original reason (though I'm not even sure that is true...it was about the countries, not the athletes)- but the Olympics is a commercial event, plain and simple. It exists because sponsors want it to.

So if the sponsors wanted the athletes to compete at 3am local time you’d be cool with that? Who cares if the skaters are half asleep anyway.

 

[Skittl1321]

So if the sponsors wanted the athletes to compete at 3am local time you’d be cool with that? Who cares if the skaters are half asleep anyway.

Guess it is up to the athletes what they will put up with. If they all boycotted the games and the sponsors had no event to use for advertising, maybe it would change. I've seen a baseball game at 3 a.m. due to delays and insane extra innings...

Are any skaters saying they are unwilling to skate at 10 a.m. because it is dangerous and refusing? Or just it isn't their preference? Did you survey all of them? Some might not be night owls and prefer it.

The jet lag for international skaters is so insane, for any event, that time seems like a meaningless construct...

 

[Rob]

I know a lot of elite figure skaters and I do not know of a single one who would prefer to compete at 10am than 10pm.

I don't doubt that at all. 10am leaves no time for preparatory rituals. I'd think 7-8 pm would be best if the preparation is anything like dance, but 10pm beats 10am every time.

 

[allezfred]

Guess it is up to the athletes what they will put up with. If they all boycotted the games and the sponsors had no event to use for advertising, maybe it would change. I've seen a baseball game at 3 a.m. due to delays and insane extra innings...

Are any skaters saying they are unwilling to skate at 10 a.m. because it is dangerous and refusing? Or just it isn't their preference? Did you survey all of them? Some might not be night owls and prefer it.

The jet lag for international skaters is so insane, for any event, that time seems like a meaningless construct...

Jet lag isn’t any better or any worse for skaters than it is for the general public. Plus athletes will typically arrive a week or two in the destination time zone to acclimatise.

But please - be my guest and tell an elite skater that competing at 10am is exactly the same as competing in the evening.

 

[MsZem]

Guess it is up to the athletes what they will put up with. If they all boycotted the games and the sponsors had no event to use for advertising, maybe it would change. I've seen a baseball game at 3 a.m. due to delays and insane extra innings...

I've never seen a baseball game start at 3am. Though there was this one that started at 1:30 (doubleheader & rain delays). Not many people left to watch the ending there.

At least baseball players are well compensated and have a strong union. Olympians often aren't, and have very little leverage.

 

[MacMadame]

Neither people nor GDP is relevant in itself: it's the spending power of whatever demographics the advertisers are targeting.

Which GDP is an indirect indicator of. But I actually think the true answer is what @marysy said.

In Canada they show the Olympics live, regardless of the time the events take place. In the evening during prime time they show a hilight package and recap. Works just fine for us.

News flash: they do that in the US too. All the sports are shown live somewhere. It might be on cable, it might be streaming. It's often on the main broadcast channel if it's not prime time. Then the primetime coverage is highlights from the day interspersed with live events.

I don't doubt that at all. 10am leaves no time for preparatory rituals. I'd think 7-8 pm would be best if the preparation is anything like dance, but 10pm beats 10am every time.

Except what @allezfred was responding to was my post where I said when competitions run late and it gets to be midnight, the skaters are visibly tired. His "hold the competition at 10pm instead of 10am" is a strawman argument because no one actually said 10pm is worse than 10am and no one is arguing that competitions should start at 10pm. People want them to start in the late afternoon or early evening.

 

[Skittl1321]

I've never seen a baseball game start at 3am. Though there was this one that started at 1:30 (doubleheader & rain delays). Not many people left to watch the ending there.

At least baseball players are well compensated and have a strong union. Olympians often aren't, and have very little leverage.

Sorry not start- but it was being played at (clearly it isn't a singular occurence, as the game you cited would also have still been playing that late). I think it started around 10 pm after a long delay, then got delayed again. I should have been more clear.


I just really think that no matter what the schedule is- some athlete, from some sport, will not get what they were hoping for. Events run all day long. Some sport will be scheduled outside its normal hours. The athletes will have to figure it out- the one who adapts the best will be rewarded.

 

[VGThuy]

Since short track speed skating shares and arena with figure skating, is it a choice of which sport gets to have local prime time coverage? I know this worked out for NBC since they could show figure skating live for East Coast and Central Time U.S. viewers. If it was a choice, are people saying figure skater interests should supersede short track speed skater interests? I keep reading references to “big sports” and allowing Koreans to watch it live in their local prime time, as if those sports should have priority over other sports.

 

[Skittl1321]

Jet lag isn’t any better or any worse for skaters than it is for the general public. Plus athletes will typically arrive a week or two in the destination time zone to acclimatise.

But please - be my guest and tell an elite skater that competing at 10am is exactly the same as competing in the evening.

I'd say jet lag is worse for a skater, because they are expected to be at their best when dealing with it. As a member of the general public, I can be grumpy, tired, and drowsy.

And if they have a week or two to acclimatize, they have a week or two to get used to the idea of a morning competition. (Even more if they were smart enough to adjust their training at home.)


Has someone told the US pairs how outraged they should have been about the 11:40 am start at US nationals? (Not quite elite, so maybe it doesn't matter, and skaters just become inflexible about their schedules as seniors: What about the 9:50 am for the junior dancers or the 8:15 am start for the novice ladies?)

Edit: 2017 worlds the ladies short program started at 10:40 am. Men's free at 10:50. Pairs was at 10:00 am in 2014. Can someone show me thread with the outrage for that?
Without continuing to list examples, all the years I check- it seems typical for someone to be starting before 11:00 am. So, they should be used to this.

 

[kwanfan1818]

is "hold the competition at 10pm instead of 10am" is a strawman argument because no one actually said 10pm is worse than 10am and no one is arguing that competitions should start at 10pm. People want them to start in the late afternoon or early evening.

According to the schedule on the ISU results page, the TE start times in Sochi were:

06.02.2014
19:30:00 Team Men Short Program
21:10:00 Team Pairs Short Program

08.02.2014
18:30:00 Team Ice Dance Short Dance
20:10:00 Team Ladies Short Program
22:05:00 Team Pairs Free Skating

09.02.2014
19:00:00 Team Men Free Skating
20:05:00 Team Ladies Free Skating
21:10:00 Team Ice Dance Free Dance

Ten Pairs teams skated their SP starting at 9:10pm local time and five Pairs teams skated their FS starting at 10:05pm local time.

Five Dance teams skated their FD starting at 9:10pm local time.

So I'm guessing there are at least some Pairs who could speak to whether starting at 10am or 10pm is preferable to them, at least.

 

[WildRose]

News flash: they do that in the US too. All the sports are shown live somewhere. It might be on cable, it might be streaming. It's often on the main broadcast channel if it's not prime time. Then the primetime coverage is highlights from the day interspersed with live events.

Yes, but it hasn’t always been that way. I remember when people in border states used to watch the coverage on CBC because they didn’t want to wait for NBC to put it on in prime time. Regardless, my point was that it’s the Olympics, people will get up in the middle of the night to watch if it it’s one of the major events like skating.

 

[clairecloutier]

Edit: 2017 worlds the ladies short program started at 10:40 am. Men's free at 10:50. Pairs was at 10:00 am in 2014. Can someone show me thread with the outrage for that?

There was no outraged thread about those situations because they couldn't be blamed on selfish, imperialistic American TV networks. (I've seen both adjectives applied, if not in this thread, then in others.)

Other TV networks, had they paid the same rights fees, would certainly have behaved much better, somehow finding a way to magically have figure skating start later in the day, while also giving short-track speed skating the primetime coverage Koreans apparently want, as well as having figure skating coverage occurring at a time convenient for their own viewers.

 

[MacMadame]

You left out 'arrogant twats'

NBC is a business and it is looking out for its best interests. While I do believe a business can be arrogant, negotiating for the schedule of a sporting event to optimize viewership hardly qualifies.

 

[allezfred]

For what it's worth, short track championships usually begin around 10-11am are done by about 5-6pm. So holding short track in the evening is also throwing short track speed skaters off their normal schedules.

 

[VGThuy]

Well, it'll be a very exciting Olympics for all athletes involved then if everyone is off their game.

 

[kwanfan1818]

remember when people in border states used to watch the coverage on CBC because they didn’t want to wait for NBC to put it on in prime time.

Hell, yeah! That's how I got to bypass Hamilton and Bezic in 2002 from Seattle (I got to see the CBC excerpted, but pretty dense, nonetheless, coverage from 10pm-12am nightly in 1998 from New Zealand: although not live, they showed big chunks of each sport without commercial breaks or fluff, and an upfront schedule so that you could skip what you wanted.)

Other TV networks, had they paid the same rights fees, would certainly have behaved much better, somehow finding a way to magically have figure skating start later in the day, while also giving short-track speed skating the primetime coverage Koreans apparently want, as well as having figure skating coverage occurring at a time convenient for their own viewers.

I think they use that thingie that Hermione was given so that she could take more than one class at the same time. Or used a spell, rather than physics, to have the needed changes to ice temperature happen more quickly.

 

[misskarne]

Edit: 2017 worlds the ladies short program started at 10:40 am. Men's free at 10:50.

There were also 36 men and 37 ladies at 2017 Worlds, ie, more than at the Olympics.

 

[allezfred]

Starting times for short track in Sochi:

10 February - 13:45
13 February - 14:00
15 February - 14:00
18 February - 13:30
21 February - 20:30

Notable absence of 10:00 starts.

 

[MacMadame]

For what it's worth, short track championships usually begin around 10-11am are done by about 5-6pm. So holding short track in the evening is also throwing short track speed skaters off their normal schedules.

They had short track in the evenings at SLC though. And I don't remember any of the skaters on tv complaining about it or any commentary saying it was a factor in anything that happened during the event.

I'm not really sure what is normal in these sports. It seems like there is convention but that convention is routinely broken in favor of other considerations. We've seen that with figure skating where people are able to come up with many elite events that didn't start in the afternoon or evening without a lot of research.

I just think it's a lot of fuss about something relatively minor. Would some of the athletes prefer to compete at different times than what their sport is scheduled for? I'm sure there are some. Will 99% of them adjust and be fine? I think they will. At least they will with a 10am start. If the start times caused them to be competing past midnight or in the middle of the night, I would see that as a much bigger problem. But no sports are scheduled during those hours as far as I can tell.

 

[VGThuy]

I guess I'm just blase about this because this is all familiar to me because this happened with gymnastics in Beijing and in the end the event and gymnasts performed as per usual. I mean it is a form of American privilege and corporate interests superseding the interest of the athletes and the locals hosting the Olympics (if they care about figure skating), but at the same time, NBC really did invest a whole lot of money into the Olympics and the Olympics are heavily reliant on that funding. Usually those who pay the bills make the rules, and that's something that applies to almost everything in life.

 

[Lizziebeth]

Fred is right that NBC is being arrogant, IMHO. Their coverage stinks, unless you prefer having your sporting events broken into segments, skipping some competitors, jumping from event to event, all punctuated by stupid fluff pieces and interrupted by a million commercials. I will be totally shocked if they show any event on the network without skipping some skaters.

I just hope the streaming is as good as it was from Sochi. I watched the stream and completely avoided the NBC evening broadcast. It was great.

I suppose the skaters will have to adjust to the unusual time of day.

 

[kalamalka]

At least they've built a second athletes' village in Gangneung, which is apparently very close to the cluster of venues (for long track, hockey and curling, in addition to FS/short track). At 4CC last year, the skaters had to spend an hour or so on buses each way, which would have made the 10 am starts brutal.

I do think it will be weird for the skaters to compete in the morning, but they are coming from a number of different time zones, and I'm sure the major federations have done a lot of consultation and planning over the last few years to be able to advise coaches and skaters on the best strategy to prepare for and manage both the time change and the event timing.

 

[allezfred]

OK, before we go any further can we stop with nonsense that short track and figure skating have been swapped around. The only reason figure skating is starting at 10am Korea time is down to NBC.

 

[Deleted member 40371]

NBC payed 4 billion $ for the broadcasting rights, if they couldn't bear to pay that much somebody else would have go it. Most small and big broadcaster have paid the broadcasting fee, so they are getting the privilege of showing the games. I can't understand how after building so much infrastructure and hours spend by those involved, IOC then decides to schedule the games for the convenience of audience half the world around. This was an opportunity for IOC to promote these events in the Asia-Pacific region, if they are so preoccupied with the $,they should have considered this as an investment for the future.I had the same problem with the 2008 Gymnastics and Swimming schedule when the IOC had the morning finals, a country of 1.2 billion was given second privilege over NBC's interest.