Again NBC Dumps on Runners: Oly Trials Won't Be Live

They’ve done it again. NBC is refusing to air the Mens Olympic Trails Marathon live. Is that why they have Universal Sports? So that they can refuse to televise fascinating sports events? How easy is it to match the drama of the all-or-nothing top-3-or-stay-home drama of the Oly Trials? Not too easy, and yet, again, they refuse to air it.

Anyone remember the great battle for making the Olympic Marathon Team back in 2004? Culpepper surging past Meb in a make or break move that turned into Culpepper’s only marathon victory? Of course you don’t. Because NBC refused to air it AT ALL. The local affiliate actually asked to televise and NBC didn’t even allow them to.

The level of outright hatred to our sport is showing here. The people at NBC had repeatedly, against everyone hoping otherwise, shown how much they HATE our sport. Go back to 1996, when they didn’t air Bob Kennedy taking the lead in the 5,000m with two laps to go on the east coast. I know, because I kept the TV on til 2am that morning waiting for them to show even a single lap of the event.

For everyone who thought that the Trials going to Houston was a good thing: for the difference of $600,000, the idiots at USATF scuttled the sport and forgot how big the 2008 Trials were. If they were in New York, Whittenberg would never allow the race not to be streamed live. Moving the race to a city that far off the radar was moronic, and now the lack of live race shows how little anyone at NBC cares. It makes even less sense to realize that they could charge a fee and get the dedicated runners to watch the web, and then get national advertising on the general show in the afternoon. You don’t have to have 20 different anchors NBC.

They have forgotten how dramatic the race was in November of 2007. Multiple changes to the third place, favorites falling out, Hall running at 2:06 pace in the middle of the race on the hills of Central Park, Sell being pursued by the former world record holder for the final spot. It was brilliant. Dramatic, Exciting.

Everything that sports is supposed to be. And now none of us will be able to see it.

We can see marathons from Berlin and Frankfurt and Rotterdam and others live on the web or on Universal Sports. But we can’t watch the selection of our own Olympic Team.

They’re fools, and they hate us. Not just disinterested, they can’t stand us. They hate the sport and wish to hell that we would all just go away. That way their Olympics could be swimmers and gymnastics and beach volleyball without all the boring running to get in the way.

You like being hated? Think that NBC having control over the Olympics has literally been the worst possible thing for this sport to have in the last 20 years? Tell them how much you hate being dumped on, and having the best part of your sport taken from you.

Let your voice be heard and contact NBC Sports & the Houston Marathon:
NBC Sports-  Twitter: @nbc_sports  Email: nbcsportshelp@nbcuni.com
Houston Marathon- Facebook  Twitter: @HoustonMarathon
Race Director, Steve Karpas
skarpas@chevronhoustonmarathon.com
Phone: 713-957-3453