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US Cord Cutters Getting Snubbed From NBC's Olympic Coverage Online

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.

Monoman writes "The Washington Post reports, 'The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics start tonight. But if you're among the 9 percent of U.S. households who have broadband but don't subscribe to paid television, it will be nearly impossible to (legally) watch the games online this year. ... That's because while NBC is streaming all of the events live online, full access to the livestream will only be available to paying cable subscribers. And thanks to a $4.38 billion exclusive deal NBC struck with the International Olympics Committee (IOC) in 2011 for the privilege of broadcasting the Olympic games in the U.S. through 2020, cord-cutters don't have a lot of options.' Is this a money play by Comcast/NBC to get some subscribers back? Should the FCC step in and require NBC to at least provide a stream of their OTA content?"

11 of 578 comments (clear)

  1. Why? by jtara · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And why is it that you are owed free content?

    1. Re:Why? by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because I'm required to pay taxes to cover the millions of dollars of public funding being spent on security for the games.

    2. Re:Why? by reebmmm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As far as I'm aware, you can still get it by antenna. So, there you have your ad supported NBC version for free.

      I don't know what that has to do with making the same content available online.

    3. Re:Why? by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And why is it that you are owed free content?

      I suppose a 4000 year old tradition of having an open and international series of games to bring about peace and cultural tolerance/friendship might confuse some people into thinking that as a global event, the ability to view and participate in them would be something not controlled by a single group of greedy profit-oriented people who don't care to hear the clamours of said participants. Sorta like Slashdot beta....

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    4. Re:Why? by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I like how the games are a private enterprise when it comes to NBC's monopoly rents on access to coverage of the games, but part of the world community when it comes to the costs of putting them on. Privatizing the benefits while collectivizing the costs is not capitalism.

    5. Re:Why? by MtHuurne · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If NBC buys television rights for billions of dollars, of course they're going to use those to make money in any way they can. In my opinion the IOC is the main party to blame here, for selling exclusive television rights in the first place. They're the ones who are supposed to uphold the Olympic tradition.

  2. Money Games by s.petry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For a while not, the Olympics has been nothing but a money making and redistribution system. When I was a kid, we had amateur athletes that worked hard for their few minutes of fame. The money for them came after their competitions, so it was a bit less corrupt. Sure, we had steroids back then and people were getting busted. At least they tried to give a sense of fair play back then.

    Today's Olympics is like watching any other televised sport (NBA/NFL/Baseball). It's a sham to make money. Most participants do have some natural talent, but anything that makes TV is well.. treated differently. Athletes are "trained", "fed", given exceptional medical care, and pampered for the spotlight. Their sponsors abuse them to make money, media outlets do the same, and Governments use them for clout (see how much money we spent on _our_ athletes!).

    I'm sure part of my bias is becoming older and more cynical. Not that much though, because we have an internet that lets us compare today to the 70s and see the difference. Pro Hockey players are what make the Olympic teams today, and Pro basket ball players, and Professional skaters are what's on the ice. The US claims to have done this because others do, which may or may not be true. Two wrongs won't bring back the original spirit of the games however.

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    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

    1. Re:Money Games by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is extremely commercial nowadays, but keeping out pros was always an idiotic farce. It harkened back to the days of pros vs. athlettes who had patrons, the latter being amateurs.

      Over the last century, many nations became the patron, including communist ones that, idiotically, legally had no pros at all. Yet their job was to develop and make the motherland look good on the international stage.

      If they could do well, they got rewarded in a perverse aping of capitalism -- they got upgraded apartments and things for their family. Judges likewise had similar additional pressure to slant things -- pressures well above the West, because lack of freedom disallowed all alternatives.

      So I'm fine with pros being allowed -- in many countries except the West, they've been there all along, and the anti-pro rule got started as a snooty wishback to days of kings and lords being patrons, with modern governments taking over that snooty role, touting it as a virue to their populace, as opposed to those crass pros doing it for money.

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  3. Move to Canada! by tom229 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Canada, despite having a population of only 30 million, has the second most athletes competing, and by far the best coverage of any developed nation.

    If you're Usian or from the UK i'd recommend getting an unblock subscription and setting your country to Canada.

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    If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
  4. Re:Use an antenna. by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pretty much all HDTVs support receiving over-the-air TV stations using an antenna, and considering NBC is one of the largest broadcast networks in the US, it shouldn't be that hard to get NBC if you don't have cable.

    Do you really think that all the content is on the OTA NBC station? In my case NBC is broadcasting on 5 different channels in my Comcast region. Only one of these is OTA.

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  5. Let the Olympics die by PingXao · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just like slash BETA the world wouldn't really be affected one way or the other if the Olympics just up and went away. The worst effects would be felt by the corporate sponsors who would be deprived of a way to market their garbage to teh sheeple consumers.

    Let the Olympics die. The International Olympic Committee and a large percentage of the national committees are some of the most corrupt organizations in the world. Fuck 'em.

    And if someone who doesn't subscribe to cable television can't see online video of the games then I consider that a GOOD thing. It leaves more bandwidth for the rest of us.