OK the Olympics in Beiling is officially over. So, how did prime time coverage go, and how did our emerging sports fare? Not surprisingly, the sports that got the most prime time coverage were those that featured superstars and (nearly) naked people.
The water sports were big, of course, even though the new, faster swimsuits covered more skin. Still, you could see all the nearly naked women and men that you wanted. In diving, both springboard and the high dive, the men and women wore more traditional swimsuits which showed more skin. And, of course, there were many superstars, the greatest of which being Michael Phelps. The women had their stars as well, including 41-year old and five-time Olympian Dara Torres, who brought home three silver medals to add to her collection. Many world records were broken, and there were lots of close races in the pool, which makes for good TV. Also, the indoor swimming races didn't last long, which is great for TV. I saw no prime time coverage of the open water swim, and no coverage of the triathlon. Meanwhile, synchronized diving got lots of air time. And yes, everyone found that synchronized diving is just weird. "Not that there's anything wrong with that..."
The other two sports that got a lot of play time were gymnastics and track and field, or athletics, although most the coverage there was on the sprint races. The American women's gymnastics team had many stars, including the Mary Lou Rettonish Shawn Johnson and her slightly more winning teammate, Nastia Liukin. The networks airing the Olympics always want to cash in on a good story, and the story here are the coaches. Liukin was born in Moscow and moved to the US with her parents, who are both champion gymnasts. She is coached by her father, a (former Soviet) Olympic gold medalist who defected to America to found his own club. And Johnson is coached by Béla Károlyi, the Romanian coach of Nadia Comaneci, who also defected to America to coach gymnasts for the US, including Mary Lou Retton, and Kerri Strug. There is a list of parallel stories among African sprinters who defected to the US and were adopted by the American team.
In track and field, more time was given to the sprints. As with swimming, shorter races on the track don't last as long, so they can air more preliminaries and background stories in between short bits of action. The Jamaican Usain Bolt rivalled Michael Phelps' role as hero of the athletics, so a lot of coverage was obviously spent there. Not as much media coverage was spent on middle distance and long distance races.
The best overall sport, in regards to prime-time watchability, was beach volleyball, especially the women's team. It had everything: huge American superstars; all the women jumping, diving, and hugging in bikinis; and non-stop action. And for the US, the story had a happy ending, as the men's team (Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers) won gold, as well as the women's team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh.
Link of the week: these Science of Sport guys. Great Olympic previews and analysis. In the network programming you get many dramatic background stories, which is nice, although it's usually focused on only the most popular of the American athletes. But here, you get the story behind the performance - the how and why, and that's even better.
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