NBC has chosen to fail

I'm watching the women's gymnastics team final tonight (without spoilers, so I don't know how it ended up), and it would be hard to imagine a bigger difference from what I saw last night during the men's competition.

From the moment Al Trautwig said that Team USA "and seven other teams" would be competing until the time it was obvious the men weren't going to win anything, the team may as well have been the only ones in the arena. There was no coverage of any other team, no standings, no nothing. It took the standard USA-centric coverage to a ridiculous level.

Tonight, at least, Al, Tim Daggett and Elfie Schlegel are sort of presenting the women's competition as a sporting event, with the Americans having competition worthy of getting their routines shown and some sort of idea of how the teams related to each other.

The change actually started last night, when Daggett explained the ins and outs of the Japanese protest that ultimately led to the team getting the silver medal, right down to why the Japanese coach was carrying money (a filing fee). That was when the thought hit me ...

... NBC could do this differently, if they wanted to.

Now, I'm not saying NBC has been sabotaging its own Olympics. I'm sure the network isn't thrilled about #nbcfail. But think about some of the issues they've had:

• The tape delays. (I don't have a problem with them, but I know lots of people hate them.)
• Cutting out the 7/7 tribute because it wasn't "tailored" to an American audience.
• Too many examples of turning the usual American-centric coverage into "NBC presents Team USA featuring the London 2012 Olympics."
• Spinning for American athletes no matter what, especially in swimming, where Rowdy Gaines keeps insisting that Lane 8 is an advantage as long as an American is there, as if there's no reason why the slowest qualifier goes there, and Ryan Lochte can still do no wrong. (It's so bad that when an announcer isn't on the team, she gets called out on Twitter. Sorry Hope, I'm with Brandi on this one.)
• Spoiling results five minutes before they air.
• Hiring Ryan Seacrest, who, as Robert Blanco of USA Today put it, "seems to have tapped into the deep reservoir of disdain every annoyed sports fan has ever felt about any lightweight, extraneous sideline reporter," which, if you ask me, greatly insults every lightweight, extraneous sideline reporter. This talentless, obnoxious twit is doing nothing that can't be done by any one of the scores of NBC people in London, including the reporter the local affiliate where I live sent. But he's a shiny bauble.

Each of these, to some degree, have been intentional. These aren't things that happened to NBC. These haven't been unexpected. Somebody decided to do, or in the case of the announcers, allow, each of these things.

Whoever this somebody is, or somebodies are, I hope they don't ever go near the Olympics again.