Olympic Events: Held Mid-Day?

I don't know that they prefer skating, and neither does anyone who hasn't done a survey. All I'm saying is it's inconvenient. Remember that a lot of people watch Olympic sports during the Olympics and only during the Olympics because it's the actual event that drives them to watch, not the sport itself. I'm a skating fan so I'll watch skating at 4am if I have to or I'll find the way to skip work during the day if I have to. A regular watcher, otoh, may not be compelled to do so.
It's just my opinion, not a fact. The schedule is done, so there's really nowhere to go as far as scheduling goes for this edition of the games.
 
Lilia A said:
I don't know that they prefer skating, and neither does anyone who hasn't done a survey. All I'm saying is it's inconvenient. Remember that a lot of people watch Olympic sports during the Olympics and only during the Olympics because it's the actual event that drives them to watch, not the sport itself. I'm a skating fan so I'll watch skating at 4am if I have to or I'll find the way to skip work during the day if I have to. A regular watcher, otoh, may not be compelled to do so.
It's just my opinion, not a fact. The schedule is done, so there's really nowhere to go as far as scheduling goes for this edition of the games.
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But doesn't SOMETHING have to be held during the work day? So why not figure skating?

Or in other years are all the events in the evening? That's what my question is. Have other Olympics really been scheduled such that no events are held during the standard local workday? I find that difficult to believe, but maybe I'm wrong.
 
Skittl1321 said:
But doesn't SOMETHING have to be held during the work day? So why not figure skating?

Or in other years are all the events in the evening? That's what my question is. Have other Olympics really been scheduled such that no events are held during the standard local workday? I find that difficult to believe, but maybe I'm wrong.
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You're not wrong. Of course events have to be held during the local workday, otherwise it would take an extra week or two if all the arena-based events were only held in the evening.

Scheduling Technical: Figure skating and short-track speed skating share the same venue, and have done so for every Olympics since short track became part of the Winter Olympics in 1992. Because of differences in the ice quality/hardness needed and the downtime required to do the switchover, they normally are not scheduled on the same days but in some cases (and this Olympics is one of them), there are one or more days where there will be one in the morning and another in the evening. Some of this has to do with whether there is enough practice ice or not on alternate locations outside the main arena, for both sports.

Scheduling Cultural: At least for the Olympics 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, figure skating events were held in the evening local time since culturally, these events are more of a draw than the short track skating events. Short track scheduling varied depending on alternate-day venue availability and sponsor preference--Sochi scheduled in afternoon, Vancouver in late afternoon, and Torino in the evening IIRC. In Korea, short-track is much more popular than figure skating so in effect, got "first pick" for the local prime evening time. This put figure skating on the overlap days in the morning. In addition to the NBC preference for the North American broadcast market, the organizers and IOC likely preferred to keep everything to mornings because when you start mixing mornings and evenings, it becomes harder to schedule all the events without short-shrifting rest periods between events for the athletes.

Die-hard figure skating fans in Korea will either get themselves over to Gangneung in person, or will watch online from wherever they happen to be. The vast majority of Koreans are not die-hard figure skating fans, though.
 
TV Guide's scheduling guide to Olympic events:
http://www.tvguide.com/news/winter-olympics-2018-what-to-know/

https://www.olympic.org/pyeongchang-2018 Official site

And here's a very handy schedule/ calendar for dates/times of all the events:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/full-schedule

http://www.nbcolympics.com/live-stream-schedule/#/sport/figure-skating/02-14-2018

Among all sports, NBC lists only the below names as the 'top' athletes of the games! Many fs stars with chances to medal left off, including Papadakis/Cizeron, Hubbell/Donahue, Mikhail Kolyada, Shoma Uno, Boyang Jin, Kaetlyn Osmond, Alina Zagitova, Gabrielle Daleman, Carolina Kostner, Savchenko/Massot, Sui/Han, Mirai Nagasu, Duhamel/Radford, et al.

Even if they are focusing only on possible gold medalists, they'd still need to at least include: Shoma Uno, Sui/Han, Savchenko/Massot, Alina Zagitova, and Papadakis/Cizeron. Plus, I'd be shocked if Patrick Chan or the Shibs pulled off a gold medal. Chan only has that opportunity in the team event. [I purposely have not mentioned T/M because I absolutely can not stand their fp and their inability to put together something more worthy of their talent -- I don't want to see them on the individual event podium! I feel bad for S/K].
 
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That list reminds me of all the articles from last year's Worlds handicapping Kostner for gold. It was only because she is a current Olympic medalist, a big name that they or casual fans might recognize. Anyone with a pair of eyes watching that season would know she would be lucky to medal, let alone win (she was 6th).
 
My personal view of the timing of the events is that I would prefer that they be held at the time that is optimal/safest for the particular sport/preferred by the athletes -- not for the convenience of TV/local viewers, but alas, $$$ talks.

I doubt the skaters prefer 10 am, but they may not like 10 pm either.
Alpine Skiing/Skijumping needs daylight I believe.
In Torino, I went to bobsled and it began in daylight and finished after sunset. Course was lit at all times.
I think Curling would be awesome in the evening with :40beers: but I have no idea what curlers like. But there was a lot of :40beers: at Nordic Combined during the day.
 
Skittl1321 said:
How do you know locals will prefer to watch figure skating over say, biathalon, or sliding?
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Don't you understand?! Skating is the most important!!! :lol:

Rob said:
I doubt the skaters prefer 10 am, but they may not like 10 pm either.
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When competitions run late, not only do skaters complain but you can see how tired they are. These are people who generally get up pretty early and go to bed early. Skating close to midnight (as has happened at various competitions that ran over) is really hard on them and seems much more dangerous to me than skating at 10am.
 
jiejie said:
Scheduling Cultural: At least for the Olympics 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, figure skating events were held in the evening local time since culturally, these events are more of a draw than the short track skating events.
Click to expand...

Not quite. In the Pacific time zone, figure skating events are NEVER in the evening "local" time, and weren't in 2010. They were scheduled to be live during the evening in Eastern time. I'm pretty sure that was also the case for SLC in 2002.
(speaking from the far left of a very wide country)
 
Rob said:
I think Curling would be awesome in the evening with :40beers: but I have no idea what curlers like. But there was a lot of :40beers: at Nordic Combined during the day.
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Round robins generally have two sessions a day, morning and afternoon, with multiple teams playing at the same time. IIRC, the medal games started in the afternoon, PT.

kalamalka said:
Not quite. In the Pacific time zone, figure skating events are NEVER in the evening "local" time, and weren't in 2010. They were scheduled to be live during the evening in Eastern time. I'm pretty sure that was also the case for SLC in 2002.
(speaking from the far left of a very wide country)
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I remember getting on a plane in early evening to head to LA on my way to Sydney the night of the Ladies FS in 2002. We were called for boarding from the lounge with the big screen TV just as Suguri finished.
 
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. :shuffle:

The U.S. TV networks are arrogant twats, but that's no surprise. On the other hand, I will be sleep deprived, but I will get to watch everything live. :P
 
kalamalka said:
They were scheduled to be live during the evening in Eastern time. I'm pretty sure that was also the case for SLC in 2002.
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I was at the SLC Olympics and the figure skating events were in the evening, local time. They weren't a few hours earlier to accommodate the East Coast.
 
kalamalka said:
Not quite. In the Pacific time zone, figure skating events are NEVER in the evening "local" time, and weren't in 2010. They were scheduled to be live during the evening in Eastern time. I'm pretty sure that was also the case for SLC in 2002.
(speaking from the far left of a very wide country)
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Point taken that broadcast executives in North America tend to benchmark around Eastern time. But as mentioned above, the SLC Olympics did not follow your assertion.

allezfred said:
The U.S. TV networks are arrogant twats, but that's no surprise. On the other hand, I will be sleep deprived, but I will get to watch everything live. :p
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NBC $4+ billion dollars in payments to the IOC buys the right to get at least some of what NBC wants. Whether that makes them "arrogant twats" is debatable. Why are you not equally chastising the IOC for taking the cash and agreeing to some of NBC's desires? After all, it takes two to tango. Or is it easier to display your anti-Americanism and let the heavily-European-member IOC off the hook? Or perhaps there are some deep pockets in your own country (ies) that would be willing to fork out the cash to swing the schedule more to your personal liking? :blah:
 
kalamalka said:
Not quite. In the Pacific time zone, figure skating events are NEVER in the evening "local" time, and weren't in 2010. They were scheduled to be live during the evening in Eastern time. I'm pretty sure that was also the case for SLC in 2002.
(speaking from the far left of a very wide country)
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http://www.icecalc.org/events/owg2002/results/
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2010/

The latest starting time in Vancouver was 5:00 p.m. P.S.T. The latest starting time in Salt Lake City was 6:23 p.m. M.S.T. Where were all of these outraged posters back then?

:soapbox:
 
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Vagabond said:
http://www.icecalc.org/events/owg2002/results/
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2010/

The latest starting time in Vancouver was 5:00 p.m. P.S.T. The latest starting time in Salt Lake City was 6:23 p.m. P.S.T. Where were all of these outraged posters back then?

:soapbox:
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Living on the East Coast?

Since the Olympic events were spread out, early evening starts were great for us attending in Vancouver, because dinner and :40beers: and recaps and arguments and getting enough sleep were possible afterwards. (Except for the Pairs SP, where I missed S/Z, who were unranked and skated first, and Pairs 2&3 because it took so freaking long to get from long-track speedskating at the Richmond Oval to PNE.)

Of course there was no Team Event to squish into two days in 2010. The earliest spectator starts were practices for which you could buy cheap tickets.
 
Vagabond said:
http://www.icecalc.org/events/owg2002/results/
http://www.isuresults.com/results/owg2010/

The latest starting time in Vancouver was 5:00 p.m. P.S.T. The latest starting time in Salt Lake City was 6:23 p.m. P.S.T. Where were all of these outraged posters back then?

:soapbox:
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You have never read an angry Canucks fan post when the Team plays The Leafs at HOME.

At least in the US, westcoasters don't complain about early start times because they are too angry about TAPED NBC OLYMPIC BROADCASTS.
 
kwanfan1818 said:
Living on the East Coast?
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Eys. :blah:
kwanfan1818 said:
Since the Olympic events were spread out, early evening starts were great for us attending in Vancouver, because dinner and :40beers: and recaps and arguments and getting enough sleep were possible afterwards.
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And what about those of us who were stuck on the mean streets of Seacliff? :wuzrobbed
manhn said:
You have never read an angry Canucks fan post when the Team plays The Leafs at HOME.
Click to expand...
:blocjudge
manhn said:
At least in the US, westcoasters don't complain about early start times because they are too angry about TAPED NBC OLYMPIC BROADCASTS.
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Damn straight! :angryfire
 
Vagabond said:
The latest starting time in Vancouver was 5:00 p.m. P.S.T. The latest starting time in Salt Lake City was 6:23 p.m. P.S.T. Where were all of these outraged posters back then?

:soapbox:
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Sure, an afternoon/early evening start is exactly the same as a 10am start.

I don't expect to be able to watch events live when they're held in the North America, because they are held in a time convenient to those there, as they should be. So to answer your question: I was asleep (and not on FSU back in 2002).

Utah would have been MST, not PST.
 
Zemgirl said:
Sure, an afternoon/early evening start is exactly the same as a 10am start.
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Since people posted those times to prove the opposite -- that at those Olympics the events were held in the evening local time and not changed to optimize tv viewing for East Coasters in the US, I'm not sure what you point you are arguing.
 
MacMadame said:
Since people posted those times to prove the opposite -- that at those Olympics the events were held in the evening local time and not changed to optimize tv viewing for East Coasters in the US, I'm not sure what you point you are arguing.
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Because Vagabond asked where the outrage was then - but there's quite a difference between starting an event at 6pm and starting it at 10am local time.

I'm not sure why everything has to be optimized for NA east coast viewing anyway, but it makes more sense when the adjustment is relatively small.
 
jiejie said:
NBC $4+ billion dollars in payments to the IOC buys the right to get at least some of what NBC wants. Whether that makes them "arrogant twats" is debatable. Why are you not equally chastising the IOC for taking the cash and agreeing to some of NBC's desires? After all, it takes two to tango. Or is it easier to display your anti-Americanism and let the heavily-European-member IOC off the hook? Or perhaps there are some deep pockets in your own country (ies) that would be willing to fork out the cash to swing the schedule more to your personal liking? :blah:
Click to expand...

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?” :P

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. :D
 
allezfred said:
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?” :p

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. :D
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Is there another sport that typically holds competitions at 10 am that could be scheduled during that time?
Which one do you recommend?
 
Vagabond said:
When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton replied, "Because that's where the money is."
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Except there isn't more money on the East Coast of the US than on the West Coast. So I also don't really understand why the East Coast viewing gets the most preference. And it's that way for most sports that are shown on tv in the US even for events that are held in the US.

Does it really make a big difference in how much money everyone makes if an event is put on at 6pm ET vs. 6pm PT? That's only a few hours difference. I am going to assume that it does or why would the networks bother?
 
MacMadame said:
Except there isn't more money on the East Coast of the US than on the West Coast.
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The combined population of California, Oregon (not entirely in the Pacific Time Zone), Washington, and Nevada is a bit more than 50 million.

The Olympics are usually broadcast at the same time in both the Eastern and Central Time Zones. (In other words, if something is shown at 8:00 p.m. in New York, it is shown at 7:00 p.m. in Chicago.) That means virtually everyone from Texas to North Dakota and east to the Atlantic Seaboard watches at the same time, and the population of that area is about five times as great as that living in the Pacific Time Zone.

It's a bit of an oversimplification, but the spending power per capita of people in the West Coast would have to be about five times greater than that in that vast area in the Eastern and Central Time Zones before NBC would start taking West Coast viewership into consideration here.

:COP: :bribe: :wuzrobbed
 
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.
 
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