Joe's is the man. Come on people how could he not be, over the past 2 weeks he has seemed to have alienated every single person on the site and millions of others in the US. That takes spunk.
But seriously I cracked. The fact that you Joe F*UCKED US all is pitiful. It's not you Joe it's your bosses, the management. Sponsers are more important than the Olympic movement, it's ok I get it. So there is this stigma that people won't get up in the morning to watch live track events and such. Then explain to me why one would get up to see USA basketball in the morning at the same time as the 100m Final and to watch the BBall final at 2:30am ET last night, but not track. I understand that in LA it was 11, but you said something about getting the schedule to match time in NY.
You also have had terrible coverage online as well showing recaps as opposed to full event coverage. I understand that filming is done by the IOC but come on. you swayed to have the swimming finals in the morning, you could've had cameras stationed in the stadium or at least taken time to create a feed as you did for handball or any of the other dumn a*s sports on there. (Just to say how did BMX become an olympic sport, this is the olympics not the X-Games. Even though I laughed when it was going on and enjoyed it, watching ppl get hurt is my thing, it still wasn't close to being olympic like. There's nothing to do with "bigger, faster, higher" envolved. Does it have anything to do with NBC's Mountain Dew Action Sports? Or the fact Shaun White excelled in Torino and you're trying to make more cash by going to a different audience. MMM, I wonder?)
Really you guys dropped the ball seriously after the 100 F*CK UP I just started to plan for London, cause it seems that you got to go there to actually watch it the way its suppose to be. I mean if Chi-town gets the ok you guys are goin to F*UCK that up as well. (Any remember ATL, remember that? Wait, what the most over commercialized olympic games.) Or at least tape delays events again, cause you of course want to show what you guys want.
So to conclude Joe tell me and others the exact reason for NBC's actions. No sugar coating, be real Joe. Profit puts money in your pocket, so seeing track fans as the ultimate minority of the games tell us why, no one would care right ? So come back on this show with questions given from us not Kev, but us, the people and explain.
battaglia again there is nothing to watch except sprints where the hell is all the distance races like the prelims of everything and especially more than 2mins of the mens 10k its been almost a week. i really hope abc and espn get the rights to the london games because people at nbc are just stupid at what they do
Sorry about any confusion in finding this video, but here is how you get to it:
Go to the track and field page
Click on videos from the top left nav bar (dark blue)
Scroll toward the bottom of the video page and search video by type. From the drop down menu, select Long-form rewind
This should bring up every session worth of video. There are four cameras going on every session, an integrated feed that bounces back and forth from the track to the field, a track-only camera, a throws camera and a jumps camera. There should be about four hours worth of video from each day and each session here. They are posted as soon as all TV embargoes end. It's about a 16 hour delay. Not my decision but one I have to live by.
As for the television broadcast, I have nothing to do with it. The only thing I said about the TV broadcast was that that we would be showing the marathons live in prime time. I do not make any decisions regarding TV and what airs in what length and when.
What I did say was that you would be able to watch races and events in their entirety and you can in these long-format rewinds.
"Don't rush to judge what you have yet to see using what you have seen in the past as a basis for that judgment. I assure you, what you will see from Beijing is unlike anything you have seen before." I think I've seen enough to agree with the last poster about the webcast -- the worst I've seen, worse than your shoddy work with the trials. 2 minutues of the men's 10,000? Who would care about your lies and incompetance if you hadn't acquired "rights" for anyone to show these events and effectively shut out genuine fans from watching them, you greedy bloodsuckers. So my considered judgment: you deserve condemnation, boycott, and the perpetual ill-will of track and field fans everywhere and forever.
battaglia, you are a straight up liar. thank you for producing possibly the worst track and field broadcast i have ever seen. i thought the trials was bad but at least it was live/same day coverage. you totally dropped the ball on the men's 100m final which is one of the top 5 events/races in every single olympic games. you chose to delay showing the final just so that usain bolt's amazing performance would not upstage phelps. when a world record is set in anything especially a marquee event like the 100m you find a way to put it in the broadcast, not wait over 12 hours to do so. you also don't claim to show the women's marathon live when it was actually on 1 hour tape delay. thank you for allowing me to learn a bit of norwegian these last few days as they produce a much superior broadcast despite me not being able to understand anything they are saying, not that nbc announcers are worth listening to anyways.
nbc is a waste.some better station should have been giving the rights to air the games.you can show us horses jumping over walls,badminton,and fencing including swimming but not track and field which most people enjoy.am beginning to suspect since white people suckkk in track and field,maybe thats why they don,t show it.nbc you a waste
Here's the website for the women's 10000 (you'd never know it by the the title of the video--Steeplechase water-pit pile up), but I challenge anyone to find this just by navigating through NBC's Olympic Website.
mr.battalia with all due respect you and your nbc coverage of track and field simply sucks. i decided and hope all follow me to quit watching nbc because it sucks and who the hell wants to watch table tennis or trampoline instead of track.
"Complete video of all races, all rounds will be made available on NBCOlympics.com as soon as the TV shows have aired on both coasts. This will be done automatically, so as soon as the clock strikes X time, the video will be made available."
So, where exactly are those videos? Currently, I can watch twenty-five minutes of Dressage Grand Prix II on your website, yet I can watch less than a minute of Shalane Flanagan. Let's set aside the question of whether the women's 10000 should have been shown live on-line (your logic that no one in New York would watch it live [on TV?] is, frankly foolish, since if that's the case, if you showed highlights on TV at night, you'd still have essentially the same audience). NBC showed only eight minutes of the race, after midnight in the central time zone. And still the race is unavailable in the States on your website, but it was available in Brazil, Denmark, England, etc. And what about the men's and women's steeplechase heats? Was there ever the intention to show them on TV? Of course not. So what would have been the harm of streaming them live on-line? What would be the harm in making them available now. No Michael Phelps in track and field--indeed, but if Lolo Jones wins gold, I would find that a much more compelling human story. Please rest assured that NBC has managed to alienate thousands of track and field fans. Anyone looking at this from the outside would assume that that must have been NBC's goal, since they have done it so effectively.
"As soon as our broadcasts have been aired...all that video will be made available for people to view on our website."
"In the case of a steeple chase semifinal...On the web it will all be there."
Still waiting for those videos Joe. I got to see the last 50m of the women's 10k. It's a really bad idea to lie on video, huh.
"It makes zero sense for NBC to air live track and field at hours in the U.S. when no one will be at a TV set (a 9 pm final in China airing at 9 am in New York)"...This is absolutely dumb. I hope you were paid to say that and this is not a product of you own reasoning. So in essence, nobody in America cares about the Olympics, so you need to shove it down there throat when they're "at a TV set"? Why don't they just put the station off-air then until 7pm? The olympics is a sporting event, not a movie production. The beauty and thrill of sport is anticipating what is going to happen and what NBC is doing absolutely kills that. What your reponse should've been is simple: NBC is tryng to make as much money as it can on airing the Olympic games and they feel the way they need to do that is to control the viewing of the events and create length dramatic back stories so they can fill it with as many Ads as possible.
Joe is great! After all the negative comments we runners have posted, he is good enough to come forward and set the record straight. His ad hoc comment about "the blonde lady in Mammoth Lakes" shows he really is a track fan at heart. I'm disappointed as anyone about NBC's primetime coverage of Track but I'm thrilled to hear we'll be able to catch ALL the events on the NBCOlympics.com.
Many thanks to Flotrack for being our public advocates.
Joe,
Thank you for the information you have given us. The negative nature of many of these posters would chase away a lesser man. I tend to disagree with you on your reasoning for not showing T&F live on the net. I know I would have the stream on all day while I am at work if the track were shown live from 8am to noon, and I am sure thousands of other track fans would as well. I agree few would be able to watch if it were shown live on TV, but the net would be a completely different story.
mr. Battaglia: my question on the broadcast outside USA considered just the American trials in Eugene. I can't imagine the IOC has anything to do with the broadcast-rights of USOC/USATF events. I wondered why Europeans couldn't even watch the USA trials as a 15 min compilation. Or is it a choice by NBC that the only want to broadcast it abroad as in television company like Eurosport pays for it.
As being from Europe, I can watch most events on the games live on different channels (Dutch national tv, Belgian tv, German tv, Brit tv), that's way better than the US ;-)
Greetz,
Bart
There is no relation to track's doping scandals and there being no live track on television from Beijing. You could argue there are less compelling athletes in track as opposed to say swimming. There is no Michael Phelps in track. But time difference has a lot to do with it as well. If you think back to Sydney, there was no live track then either. Was very little live from Athens either. The 12 hour time difference between China and U.S. East Coast has a lot to do with this. It makes zero sense for NBC to air live track and field at hours in the U.S. when no one will be at a TV set (a 9 pm final in China airing at 9 am in New York). There will be track on the primetime shows and for that reason, track is not being streamed live. Same goes for about 7 other sports that will be showed on primetime. Complete video of all races, all rounds will be made available on NBCOlympics.com as soon as the TV shows have aired on both coasts. This will be done automatically, so as soon as the clock strikes X time, the video will be made available. Gymnastics finals in the morning in Beijing were not a big deal to schedule. Michael Phelps' drive for eight golds and showing that live on primetime in the U.S. drove the decision to push for a switch of swimming finals from evening to morning, and believe me there are a lot of people in the swimming community unhappy about that. Another consideration is Liu Xiang's popularity in China and wanting him to run before an evening crowd in China. As for the partnership with WCSN, their technology is not in place with the content management system we use for NBCOlympics.com and the live-stream technology we used for Trials and what we will use in Beijing are like night and day. Don't rush to judge what you have yet to see using what you have seen in the past as a basis for that judgment. I assure you, what you will see from Beijing is unlike anything you have seen before. To touch on an earlier post about video being unavailable outside the U.S., it is actually an IOC violation for us to show a lot of our video outside the U.S. because of other broadcast deals the IOC has in various countries. That is why all of our video is GEO protected.
Down with NBC! It would be better to see them get out of track altogether so that Flotrack or someone like that could webcast the events. NBC buys up the "rights" to show the events, and then only allows snippets of a few events days later with stupid commentary. At Pre Classic they didn't show 10,000m; at the Trials we missed the 1500, almost of the m. and w.'s 10,000 and so much more. Who needs TV anyway? Flotrack's live webcast from Stanford Invitational was the best athletics I've seen on any screen.
Selby needs to do some "homework" because he obviously lacks the knowledge base to come across as a thought-provoking interviewer.
It shouldn't be all that difficult to ask Battaglia at NBC if track and field lost out on LIVE coverage due to all of the drug issues over the last several years, or why it is that NBC's newfound partner, WCSN is not offering any LIVE web-stream coverage ( like they did from Osaka last Summer for the WC's ). Note to Selby: Do a search for Universal Sports, NBC, WCSN.
And as the previous poster touched upon . . . How could anyone be happy with NBC's coverage of the US Olympic Trials?
Come on Kevin . . . Quit playing "patty-cake" with our beloved Sport and ask the questions that REAL track and field fans want to ask!!!
Is that too much to ask?
In a world that is going soft, someone needs to be hard. Ask NCS Guy's ?
Kevin, are you really satified with the trials coverage? Never be satisfied.
At least they made sure they put those Nike adds up. Nike Town.
With all the polution there isn't going to be any great performances anyway. They should hold all the races indoors.
These days it not about the "technology", but about freakn' $$$$$$$$$
I do love the Track Revolution show, but I was disappointed that Kevin never asked the most important question. Why is there no live track and field coverage? Joe, I saw you posted earlier in the comment section, would you care to comment on this topic?
Kevin,
you are discounting Jamica in the sprints,(How did the US Sprint ladies do at Crystal Palace this weekend) assume that the Keynan Junior at 800m will not deliver and ignore history that says when testing is good outside Russia, Russian female team does not perform, You need a more holistic knowledge of the track. However more power to your elbow for such bold statements that create debate! JK
Come on Kevin . . .
Ask the HARD questions!
Stop stroking Joe Battaglia and ask him why NBC will not be showing ANY track and field coverage LIVE! Let's face it . . . NBC's coverage of the Trials up in Eugene was a total joke. Not only was it not LIVE, but it was shown at 11PM on the West Coast! How can anyone in their right mind explain that as being cutting edge?
I'm sorry Mr. Battaglia but you are sadly mistaken.
The "technology" is already in place, as shown last year at World's via WCSN.
Stop apologizing and making excuses for lack of LIVE streaming coverage of track and field!
Where is WCSN in all of this???
The LIVE coverage of the Worlds from Osaka last year was awesome!
NBC is not showing any LIVE streaming coverage of Track & Field.
Are you freaking kidding me?
What a joke.
So we are going to have to wait until after the coverage is shown on TV on both coasts before anything is posted on the Web? They are showing 20+ sports streaming live on the net, why is Track not one of them?!!!
HT get over yourself. That intro song is fine. If that is all you can find time to complain about then you need to spend a few more hours in the week training.
I hope the Track and Field coverage is good. I wasn't very impressed with the trials coverage. There were some good races, but there were also some good prelims that were cut out.
Just to answer the questions about watching video outside of the U.S. Our videos leading up to the Olympics are all Geo protected, which means they are blocked outside of the U.S. I am not exactly sure why this is the case but I'm sure it has to do with rights issues, i.e. someone else may have broadcast rights in say xxx country. I'm pretty sure the Geo protection comes down during the Olympics. If that is not the case, I will post that here.
Macintosh users -- please understand that the requirements to watch successfully ANY online coverage @ NBCOlympics.com is an Intel-based Mac and installation of the latest version of Microsoft Silverlight (which is free.) Owners of older Macs are excluded because they are limited in using a previous version of Silverlight.
I am still waiting to see with NBC's coverage, they still don't have my full confidence. They should be able to fit SOME of these events on live, despite the time change.
So question for Joe:
How come NBC blocks non-American viewers from seeing the few races from the trials that are archived?
Canadians are blocked...and sorry Joe, but it IS "technologically possible" to allow this.
I still don't get why they are so stingy.
Oh my good lord! That music in the beginning really needs to stay in the 80's, it is so terrible, and makes this program seem so much less professional. Please take it out!
Great! The ability to watch the 10,000 in its entirety - wow. To see the heats of the 5,000! Historically, these events have been reduce to about three minutes - if hey were shown at all! What more can I ask. This is a bg improvement!
This will take me weeks to watch - I hope they archive it and keep it up for some time.
Kevin, good job - I missed your coverage that last few weeks.
They should put things on On Demand enabled cable or satellite providers. That would be friggin sweet. That way it wouldn't limit the viewers in terms of compatibility. Still keep the internet stuff that way if you don't have the internet compatibility but the cable or satellite network compatibility.
It's nice to have the preliminary heats on the web, after the fact. But, one would hope that with the 100 various nbc outlets that they'd find a way to get most of them on tv somehow.
Pictures thanks to Victah Sailer/Photorun from the 2007 Berlin Marathon, and the Caltech Track
Track Revolution # 7 - NBC Olympic Coverage
Kevin Selby talks to Joe Battaglia from NBC about how accesible Track and Field events will be from the Beijing games on the TV and on the Web July 25, 2008
Track Revolution is a series featuring recaps and previews of track action, and more in depth coverage of people and topics Flotrack viewers want to see and hear. Anchored by Flotrack Commentator Kevin Selby.
Track Revolution # 7 - NBC Olympic Coverage
But seriously I cracked. The fact that you Joe F*UCKED US all is pitiful. It's not you Joe it's your bosses, the management. Sponsers are more important than the Olympic movement, it's ok I get it. So there is this stigma that people won't get up in the morning to watch live track events and such. Then explain to me why one would get up to see USA basketball in the morning at the same time as the 100m Final and to watch the BBall final at 2:30am ET last night, but not track. I understand that in LA it was 11, but you said something about getting the schedule to match time in NY.
You also have had terrible coverage online as well showing recaps as opposed to full event coverage. I understand that filming is done by the IOC but come on. you swayed to have the swimming finals in the morning, you could've had cameras stationed in the stadium or at least taken time to create a feed as you did for handball or any of the other dumn a*s sports on there. (Just to say how did BMX become an olympic sport, this is the olympics not the X-Games. Even though I laughed when it was going on and enjoyed it, watching ppl get hurt is my thing, it still wasn't close to being olympic like. There's nothing to do with "bigger, faster, higher" envolved. Does it have anything to do with NBC's Mountain Dew Action Sports? Or the fact Shaun White excelled in Torino and you're trying to make more cash by going to a different audience. MMM, I wonder?)
Really you guys dropped the ball seriously after the 100 F*CK UP I just started to plan for London, cause it seems that you got to go there to actually watch it the way its suppose to be. I mean if Chi-town gets the ok you guys are goin to F*UCK that up as well. (Any remember ATL, remember that? Wait, what the most over commercialized olympic games.) Or at least tape delays events again, cause you of course want to show what you guys want.
So to conclude Joe tell me and others the exact reason for NBC's actions. No sugar coating, be real Joe. Profit puts money in your pocket, so seeing track fans as the ultimate minority of the games tell us why, no one would care right ? So come back on this show with questions given from us not Kev, but us, the people and explain.
Go to the track and field page
Click on videos from the top left nav bar (dark blue)
Scroll toward the bottom of the video page and search video by type. From the drop down menu, select Long-form rewind
This should bring up every session worth of video. There are four cameras going on every session, an integrated feed that bounces back and forth from the track to the field, a track-only camera, a throws camera and a jumps camera. There should be about four hours worth of video from each day and each session here. They are posted as soon as all TV embargoes end. It's about a 16 hour delay. Not my decision but one I have to live by.
As for the television broadcast, I have nothing to do with it. The only thing I said about the TV broadcast was that that we would be showing the marathons live in prime time. I do not make any decisions regarding TV and what airs in what length and when.
What I did say was that you would be able to watch races and events in their entirety and you can in these long-format rewinds.
"Don't rush to judge what you have yet to see using what you have seen in the past as a basis for that judgment. I assure you, what you will see from Beijing is unlike anything you have seen before." I think I've seen enough to agree with the last poster about the webcast -- the worst I've seen, worse than your shoddy work with the trials. 2 minutues of the men's 10,000? Who would care about your lies and incompetance if you hadn't acquired "rights" for anyone to show these events and effectively shut out genuine fans from watching them, you greedy bloodsuckers. So my considered judgment: you deserve condemnation, boycott, and the perpetual ill-will of track and field fans everywhere and forever.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/player.html?assetid=1278468&channelcode=sportat
Where exactly is this video on NBCOlympics.com?
So, where exactly are those videos? Currently, I can watch twenty-five minutes of Dressage Grand Prix II on your website, yet I can watch less than a minute of Shalane Flanagan. Let's set aside the question of whether the women's 10000 should have been shown live on-line (your logic that no one in New York would watch it live [on TV?] is, frankly foolish, since if that's the case, if you showed highlights on TV at night, you'd still have essentially the same audience). NBC showed only eight minutes of the race, after midnight in the central time zone. And still the race is unavailable in the States on your website, but it was available in Brazil, Denmark, England, etc. And what about the men's and women's steeplechase heats? Was there ever the intention to show them on TV? Of course not. So what would have been the harm of streaming them live on-line? What would be the harm in making them available now. No Michael Phelps in track and field--indeed, but if Lolo Jones wins gold, I would find that a much more compelling human story. Please rest assured that NBC has managed to alienate thousands of track and field fans. Anyone looking at this from the outside would assume that that must have been NBC's goal, since they have done it so effectively.
"In the case of a steeple chase semifinal...On the web it will all be there."
Still waiting for those videos Joe. I got to see the last 50m of the women's 10k. It's a really bad idea to lie on video, huh.
Many thanks to Flotrack for being our public advocates.
Thank you for the information you have given us. The negative nature of many of these posters would chase away a lesser man. I tend to disagree with you on your reasoning for not showing T&F live on the net. I know I would have the stream on all day while I am at work if the track were shown live from 8am to noon, and I am sure thousands of other track fans would as well. I agree few would be able to watch if it were shown live on TV, but the net would be a completely different story.
As being from Europe, I can watch most events on the games live on different channels (Dutch national tv, Belgian tv, German tv, Brit tv), that's way better than the US ;-)
Greetz,
Bart
It shouldn't be all that difficult to ask Battaglia at NBC if track and field lost out on LIVE coverage due to all of the drug issues over the last several years, or why it is that NBC's newfound partner, WCSN is not offering any LIVE web-stream coverage ( like they did from Osaka last Summer for the WC's ). Note to Selby: Do a search for Universal Sports, NBC, WCSN.
And as the previous poster touched upon . . . How could anyone be happy with NBC's coverage of the US Olympic Trials?
Come on Kevin . . . Quit playing "patty-cake" with our beloved Sport and ask the questions that REAL track and field fans want to ask!!!
Is that too much to ask?
Kevin, are you really satified with the trials coverage? Never be satisfied.
At least they made sure they put those Nike adds up. Nike Town.
With all the polution there isn't going to be any great performances anyway. They should hold all the races indoors.
These days it not about the "technology", but about freakn' $$$$$$$$$
you are discounting Jamica in the sprints,(How did the US Sprint ladies do at Crystal Palace this weekend) assume that the Keynan Junior at 800m will not deliver and ignore history that says when testing is good outside Russia, Russian female team does not perform, You need a more holistic knowledge of the track. However more power to your elbow for such bold statements that create debate! JK
Ask the HARD questions!
Stop stroking Joe Battaglia and ask him why NBC will not be showing ANY track and field coverage LIVE! Let's face it . . . NBC's coverage of the Trials up in Eugene was a total joke. Not only was it not LIVE, but it was shown at 11PM on the West Coast! How can anyone in their right mind explain that as being cutting edge?
Get real.
The "technology" is already in place, as shown last year at World's via WCSN.
Stop apologizing and making excuses for lack of LIVE streaming coverage of track and field!
The LIVE coverage of the Worlds from Osaka last year was awesome!
NBC is not showing any LIVE streaming coverage of Track & Field.
Are you freaking kidding me?
What a joke.
I hope the Track and Field coverage is good. I wasn't very impressed with the trials coverage. There were some good races, but there were also some good prelims that were cut out.
How come NBC blocks non-American viewers from seeing the few races from the trials that are archived?
Canadians are blocked...and sorry Joe, but it IS "technologically possible" to allow this.
I still don't get why they are so stingy.
This will take me weeks to watch - I hope they archive it and keep it up for some time.
Kevin, good job - I missed your coverage that last few weeks.
thanks shelby for that memo