Dear NBC-Olympic-Coverage-Decision-Type people,

I get it.

On a very small, blogger, old broadcaster, sort of level, I get it.

It can’t be too easy to try to show an enitre country the size of of the United States the multitude of games that are going on for 2 weeks this summer at the 30th Olympiad of the modern era. You have to pick up your broadcast operations and ship them across an ocean and then quickly transmit all of the events and results to a potential 300 million people in a somewhat consisent way.

It can’t be an easy job. I think that you’re probably doing most things with the best of intentions.

And I’m sure that you’ve done a TON of planning and plotting to make sure that you get things just right.

All that said, I know your research might show differently, but I’m pretty sure that not all of us American viewers would feel less fidelity to our country if you bothered to cover a broader range of sports and highlighted people that other than fellow countrymen and women. I think that a good hunk of us are capable of and willing to check out some “weird” games that we only get a chance to see performed at their highest level every 48 months. I’m not asking you to put “This Week In Skeet Shooting” in prime time after 30 Rock all year, but I know that I’d watch it once a quadrennial.

And there are as many great stories as athletes out there. And I’m sure there are people that have sacrificed more than time, money, family contact and sleep to be at The Games. There are women from places that are risking physical violence for even thinking about having the nerve to want to play sports, and participants from some countries that will send them to labor camps for not performing up to par. So just keep it in mind that every time you don’t allow Ryan to obey his own catch phrase, “Seacrest, OUT,” and stay off the air with his silly puff pieces, you’re not allowing the US public to either see one of the many other sports that are going on during this fortnight or find out about all the potentially multi-layered human stories float that, therefore, float off into the ether.

I’m just sayin’.
Thanks!

An Olympics Viewer