[QUOTE=horsephotolady;3442567]
ShawneeAcres:
I totally agree with you. I can watch video all over the internet. But not the Olympics! Why didn’t they use a technology that was more widely available!?[/QUOTE]
I believe that it’s a Microsoft scheme to increase their market share in online video.
I never would have downloaded Silverlight otherwise.
By the way, I love watching the whitewater canoeing and kayaking - two sports that are dramatically like show jumping IMHO - the person is at the mercy of the river and has to work with it instead of against it, and one little thing can move the gold medal favorite to also-ran.
They aren’t even doing live streaming of the whitewater.
I’ve run across a lot of random people who spontaneously tell me that they’re staying up too late watching equestrian - people who don’t necessarily know how horsey I am and people who I didn’t even know had much interest in horses.
I’m kind of cheered to hear we’re the laughingstock. At least they think about us at all. 
Great suggestion; BBC truly knows how to present our sports to their best advantage. It is VERY hard for the average non-horsey person to follow the cut & paste coverage we are seeing on Oxygen. DH wanted to root for the US on cross country but couldn’t tell which horses were ours. He wants to understand dressage; and the commentary is ok but could be so much more … I (of course) try to fill him in! Some explanation as to why it is hard to do well would help tremendously.
And lets face it, the angles of the shots in xcntry and SJ give no real feel for the size of the course OR the jumps! Now he has been to KHP and some jumping ‘in person’ he is much more impressed. Lots of shots (maybe between rounds) of each jump with a story about it and footage from on the ground next to it … a discussion of the various approaches and what mistakes to look for… equals new enthusiastic fan!
DH has complained that they’ve done a lousy job of explaining the scoring or play or techniques in any of the sports, and I would agree. On the other hand, it’s a tough balance between taking 5 minutes for that and removing 5 minutes of competition.
If I see one more minute of beach volleyball I am going to toss my cookies. :dead::dead:
Have you ever seen Bob Costas cover horse racing? Blargh. He’s one of the absolute worst- he’s unwatchable. I think I prefer to view my other favorite horse sports without him being involved.
And I totally agree that the economic/viewing vote is certianly the post powerful. So keep clicking and watching the horse sports.
Well I admit - when I watch the olympics, just about the last thing I think about is the equestrian events. I only want to watch swimming and gymnastics. I think I’d be bummed if I turned on the tv and had to watch Anky instead of Phelps. I don’t mind watching highlights after-the-fact, but live coverage? No way, no horses. I see horses every day. I want to watch something DIFFERENT that I dont’ get to see every day! 
I most definitely do NOT think the horse sports should be the “laughing stock.” That’s just absurd. Those are hard working athletes - horses and humans - who worked hard to get there. They DO deserve the coverage, and people should be able to see them. I just personally prefer not to watch the horse coverage, but there SHOULD be good coverage for the horse people that DO want to watch.
But for me, I’ll take those rock hard bodies in speedos any day over a tophat and tails. :eek: Come ON ladies, it doesn’t get better than this http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=michael%20phelps&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi :eek: :lol: :winkgrin: If that first picture doesn’t give you a heart attack then there’s no hope for you! LOL
NBC Sports is in the business to make money, and if they know that they would be moving in a direction that will make them money (like, growing audiences from streaming or broadcast or target-market networks), they will go there.
Hearing from viewers really does affect their outlook, so it’s great to let the division know. If you’re really going to deal with NBC, then above all, be business-like. Ditch the anecdotes, and get the hard numbers on the sport-horse industry in the U.S. and Canada (and maybe Mexico?) and present the NBC Sports powers that be with that info. These people who laugh at the horse sports are hard-core Big 4 types, but they want to be making money with them. So, don’t engage with them until you can give them the facts – audience, demographics, etc. – that WILL engage them and let them do what matters to them, which is attracting those advertisers and making money for their division.
I agree, they may be laughing, but they also air Rolex Kentucky, etc. They want to be where the money is. And it’s not at all unusual to contract out to other broadcasters who have the expertise in the more ‘specialized’ sports. They’ve done quite a bit.
Why is it being laughed at in the first place? I know thats a dumb question but really whats so funny??? 
Is it because its boring to watch for people who don’t know anything about the sport?
Is it because we wear funny attire?
Is it because they don’t consider it a sport???
I’m just a lil confused??
I shared this morning’s dressage live broadcast with my officemate and she loved it. She does figures in roller skating and she understood it right away.
Well at least people are watching- my co-worker just asked “what is the point of this dressage thing?” and seemed really shocked when I told him it was physically demanding.
It’s hard not to get insulted at that though. I mean, what is the point of pairs diving? Or downhill skiing?
I’ve heard that you can watch on Oxygen, and being close to Canada, some of us even get CBC which I’ve heard has good coverage. Unfortunately, my cable company carries neither of those.
I’m only getting 2 channels…the main NBC station and one other that has mostly just had boxing on.
I do have DVR and was all geeked when I heard the Oxygen schedule…but alas, not offered.
I’ve not had a lot of time to sit down and watch the nbcolympics.com stuff yet because I don’t have an appropriate computer at home–only my work machine. But I intend to watch some and get caught up.
All that said…my mom, who really doesn’t know much about eventing or dressage or jumping…has called me excitedly before, during, and after every equestrian broadcast. She’s totally geeked. And several coworkers have asked me about the schedule as they’d like to watch (not horse people either, just see all my videos from Rolex and such and think it’s neat).
I don’t necessarily think most people NEED to understand all of the technicalities involved to enjoy watching horses jump big stuff or put together a lovely dressage test.
I will say though…aside from watching Phelps kick butt, there hasn’t been that much that has excited me thus far on prime time. I wish they’d show more finals in other sports rather than all the prelim/qualifying in swimming and such. Goodness.
As I said on the other thread, it was possible to have a complete XC run, or danged close to it, live and German TV did it for Marius. I just watched. And I’m fixing to watch it again. If the BBC is responsible for the cutting and pasting and switching around, they did a terrible job. Since NBC is not doing this live for TV, why couldn’t they spend the money to get complete rides and then edit the tapes themselves?
Oddly enough, I have many friends who are into judo. They write, email, phone the networks all the time looking for more judo coverage! I wonder if the laughter is more due to an inside joke than lack of respect for our sport. I have a suspicion judo and equestrian may be sports that get a lot of requests, but not such high ratings.
Come to think of it, what’s the point of all these different swimming strokes? If you have to swim from Point A to Point B, wouldn’t you do it in the fastest, most efficient way possible? Why would you ever do a backstroke, breast stroke, or butterfly?
Imagine if track went the same way: we’d have the 100 m skipping race, the 200 m running backwards race…
I’m in Pittsburgh, PA. My local station is Channel 11 (WPXI). I’m only seeing what’s on Oxygen but the amount of viewers (Olympics-wide) was noted as well as specific events…one being the cross country on Oxygen. They were glad it was money well spent as they were unsure anyone would watch especially on Oxygen.
Any time I complain about equestrian stuff getting bumped or not covered in general (no matter what the event), I am told by my BF to get as many people to watch as possible as that’s the best way to change the minds of those deciding what to air and when. Hell, in this city, they cut off the last few minutes of a football game (might even have been a super bowl) to air Heidi :eek: - NOT wise and they have since mended the error of their ways. Biggest reason-everyone turned off the tv or at least the channel when the movie came on. Other reason-enough correspondence was rec’d regarding their giant mistake :winkgrin:
Equestrian events are super hard to put on for the public. For some reason, regardless of how many people think horses are beautiful, they won’t watch an entire broadcast of horsie stuff. I don’t know if they get bored because horses are just going in circles most of the time or randomly jumping things sometimes or what but they don’t watch and TV has noted that over the years. As a kid I watched the Budwiser Grand Prix on TV many times. As I got older horsie things faded more and more.
Horse things are very technical and if you aren’t “into” the sport I can see why watching only a little would get, well, boring. We have the same problem with Hockey (I love it and go to as many games as possible but on tv it can get boring to watch). Still though, the more we watch and the more we express our gratitude for seeing what we have as well as expressing a desire for more, the more likely we are to get it.
[QUOTE=AM;3443279]
I shared this morning’s dressage live broadcast with my officemate and she loved it. She does figures in roller skating and she understood it right away.[/QUOTE]
Heh. Ask her if she knows why they were ultimately dumped by the ISU for figure skating. I bet she knows–it’s because figures were ultimately deemed too costly in terms of training and ice time required, because they make it very easy for judges to put someone so far ahead no one else can win, but most important of all they are inherently NOT TV-friendly. They are tedious, they are boring, and in skating, where they are actually looking at the marks on the ice, no one but the judges can actually see anything important. They also took up a huge amount of time and made for really, really, REALLY dull TV. While it’s definitely true basic skating skills have slid since they were eliminated, and there’s a strong argument they should still be part of the test stream in some form, no one wants to see them back in competition. Because they are dull to WATCH. Dressage suffers from a similar problem. If you aren’t doing it, even if you know how, it can get old really fast.
[QUOTE=dogchushu;3443386]
Imagine if track went the same way: we’d have the 100 m skipping race, the 200 m running backwards race… :D[/QUOTE]
That would make me watch track :lol:
[QUOTE=Wellspotted;3441489]
OK, once these Olympics are over, let’s ALL sit down and write letters to Bob Costas and the other NBC Olympics people.
I mean ALL. OF. US. All horse fans. Anyone who wants to see more equestrian coverage in 2012.
Write intelligent, well-thought-out letters, or send e-mails with links to exciting video clips. Maybe from the BBC and other networks that do cover equestrian sports. After all, if an “ordinary working man” in England can know the names of show jumpers, why can’t an ordinary American?
Sell the sport to NBC. Be a REAL supporter. Convince them. Invite them to your barn, to local shows. SHOW them that equestrian competition is exciting. Introduce them to a horse up close–maybe a big 17-hand-plus WB to impress them. If the Clydesdales can sell Bud, can WBs and TBs and DCs (DXs?) and all other horses sell equestrian sports?
Some woman (sorry, don’t know her name) brought Bob Costas a scorpion on a stick tonight, and he suggested that tomorrow she cover the traffic in Beijing. Stick Bob on a big-moving dressage horse or face him with a cross country fence and SHOW that it’s exciting!
And for the sport’s sake, MFP, tell us your friend’s name so we can write to him! As he’s such a “really great guy,” maybe he’ll sit up and take notice![/QUOTE]
I’ll add to this – THANK THEM for the coverage they already show.
I’m always amazed that, when they finally DO show equestrian events, people complain that the coverage isn’t good enough or something like that. No wonder they don’t want to show it - every time they make an attempt, they get criticized.
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