Aug. 5, 2008

While the rest of the Tar Heel football program is sweating through training camp, the normally ever-present Kevin Best is absent. Don't worry, he's got a good--or is that gold?--reason. The Deputy Director of Athletic Communications is in Beijing this month, where he's serving as the Information Manager for all Olympic events at the National Stadium. That includes the opening and closing ceremonies, all track and field events, and the men's soccer final. Kevin will file periodic dispatches from Beijing for THB.com.

There are 196 commentary positions at the stadium. NBC owns approximately 12 of those spots. The rest are divided among the world's other rights-holding broadcasters.

NBC holds the broadcasting rights for the Olympics for the United States and pays a handsome sum to do so. That means typical sports channels like ESPN and Eurosport are not allowed to show any live coverage or highlight packages during the Games. If Heather O'Reilly and the U.S. Olympic women's soccer teams captures gold, you won't see it on ESPN. Instead, ESPN can only show a still photo and the results. NBC, for good reason, does everything it can to encourage the U.S. viewer to watch the Olympics on one of its channels such as NBC, CNBC, MSNBC and Bravo, just to name a few.

Other rights-holders you may recognize include CBC (Canada), SEVEN (Australia), BBC (England), CCTV (China) and ARD/ZDF (German). Al Jazeera is also here along with nearly every European TV rights-holder.

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Just spotted Matt Lauer. Does that mean we can start the Olympics, or do we have wait for Bob Costas?

It's no secret that NBC is a major player in the way the Olympics are presented to the world, but the TV giant has had a direct impact on the schedule of some events this time. For example, many swimming event finals will take place in China in the morning so NBC can show them in prime time back in the States. No other rights-holder has that kind of power.

Just saw a dress rehearsal of the opening ceremonies along with 91,000 others. It was spectacular. Should be a good show. NBC's coverage will begin Friday night at 7:30.