What's With All This Olympic Beach Volley Ball?
Olympic beach volley ball dominates NBC's prime time coverage. At least it seems that way to me. What's with this?
It seems like this focus on Olympic beach volley ball started over the last couple of Olympics. At first I thought it was because the women were scantily dressed. But during the London games, the women have had to cover up at times when the matches were at night, since the weather's been chilly and wet. Besides, they're also covering the men.
So is it the sport itself that's the attraction? Do Americans really care that much about beach volley ball?
What gets me annoyed is that I really like track and field. And it seems like that's gotten nudged to the side somewhat, especially the field events like shot put, pole vault, high jump and javelin. I saw a few quick shots of some of these (still no javelin!), but that's about it. On the other hand, they showed just about the entire match between the U.S. and Lithuanian men, which resulted in a big upset when the Lithuanians won. Somehow I just couldn't get all that worked up over it.
Meanwhile, whatever happened to the rings competition in men's gymnastics? I remember how that was always pretty dramatic watching those guys, especially when they had to lift themselves up with their arms straight out to either side and hold the position for a few seconds. Ouch! How do they do that? You don't think that's more interesting than guys playing volley ball in the sand. Oh, and it's not like they're really playing on a beach, of course. It's just an artificial sand box.
I'm probably off base here, but I wonder (if Americans really like this beach volley ball stuff and it's not just a poor decision on the part of NBC) whether this attraction to beach volley ball vs more, shall we say "real" sports (no offense intended to the beach volley ball players, of course), isn't somehow consistent with Americans' choices of what they watch on TV in general. Is it just me, or have more and more TV offerings slipped even more into the "mindless drivel" category?
And no, I'm not going to tell you I watch Public TV instead of the networks. Or that I watch the "Discovery Channel" instead of "American Idol" or anything like that. The thing is, out of all the stuff I watch (probably too much!), I do like sports. And the thought that sports coverage at the Olympics is going to emphasize more of this beach volley ball stuff (never mind synchronized diving!) just sort of depresses me.
Well, never mind. No reason to spend a lot of time analyzing this. I suspect if I did it would just lead me to conclude that Americans continue to focus their brain power on exactly that which will lead to a total loss of brain power. Just watch TV sometime and tell me it ain't so.
It seems like this focus on Olympic beach volley ball started over the last couple of Olympics. At first I thought it was because the women were scantily dressed. But during the London games, the women have had to cover up at times when the matches were at night, since the weather's been chilly and wet. Besides, they're also covering the men.
So is it the sport itself that's the attraction? Do Americans really care that much about beach volley ball?
What gets me annoyed is that I really like track and field. And it seems like that's gotten nudged to the side somewhat, especially the field events like shot put, pole vault, high jump and javelin. I saw a few quick shots of some of these (still no javelin!), but that's about it. On the other hand, they showed just about the entire match between the U.S. and Lithuanian men, which resulted in a big upset when the Lithuanians won. Somehow I just couldn't get all that worked up over it.
Meanwhile, whatever happened to the rings competition in men's gymnastics? I remember how that was always pretty dramatic watching those guys, especially when they had to lift themselves up with their arms straight out to either side and hold the position for a few seconds. Ouch! How do they do that? You don't think that's more interesting than guys playing volley ball in the sand. Oh, and it's not like they're really playing on a beach, of course. It's just an artificial sand box.
I'm probably off base here, but I wonder (if Americans really like this beach volley ball stuff and it's not just a poor decision on the part of NBC) whether this attraction to beach volley ball vs more, shall we say "real" sports (no offense intended to the beach volley ball players, of course), isn't somehow consistent with Americans' choices of what they watch on TV in general. Is it just me, or have more and more TV offerings slipped even more into the "mindless drivel" category?
And no, I'm not going to tell you I watch Public TV instead of the networks. Or that I watch the "Discovery Channel" instead of "American Idol" or anything like that. The thing is, out of all the stuff I watch (probably too much!), I do like sports. And the thought that sports coverage at the Olympics is going to emphasize more of this beach volley ball stuff (never mind synchronized diving!) just sort of depresses me.
Well, never mind. No reason to spend a lot of time analyzing this. I suspect if I did it would just lead me to conclude that Americans continue to focus their brain power on exactly that which will lead to a total loss of brain power. Just watch TV sometime and tell me it ain't so.
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