Missing the Olympic Channel

It's been nearly a year since NBC shut down the Olympic Channel and moved most of their Olympic sports content to USA/CNBC and Peacock.  On the surface, it made sense.  USA and CNBC both have wider distribution, it cost money to keep a linear channel on the air, and they didn't have enough content to broadcast 24 hours a day without repeating stuff (sometimes multiple times).  Plus, they wanted to push Peacock, and they figured that the people who want to watch that content still would on Peacock.

For the most part, it hasn't been as bad as I originally envisioned.  They show stuff live on Peacock, then again on tape delay on either USA or CNBC (with some figure skating on E!).  Or, depending on the event, it'll be live on both Peacock and one of the cable channels (or NBC itself).  So, it's actually very few events that are streaming-only.  However, even though they can theoretically put everything on Peacock, they're actually showing less Olympic sports content than they were before!  And that really gets you missing the Olympic Channel.

I actually first noticed it during the winter.  When the Olympic Channel was on the air, they showed all of the winter sports.  Curling.  Luge.  Bobsled.  Biathlon.  Cross country skiing.  Ski jumping.  Peacock doesn't have any of the those.  The only winter sports shown on Peacock are alpine skiing, snowboarding and figure skating.

The summer sport options are also much more limited.  Among the sports featured on the Olympic Channel at various points were volleyball (both indoor and beach), archery, wrestling, diving, and probably some others I'm missing.  Peacock, meanwhile, is pretty much just the big three--track & field, swimming and gymnastics.

Pretty much every summer sport holds its World Championships in odd-numbered years.  The four-year cycle, of course, got thrown off by the pandemic and the Olympic postponement, which pushed the 2021 World Championships to last year, but we're back on the normal schedule this summer.  Which means World Championships in all of the major summer sports one year before the Paris Games.

In 2019, the last pre-Olympic year, all of those World Championships were on the Olympic Channel.  And not just the marquee events, either.  Swimming is only part of the larger World Aquatics Championships.  They showed all of it.  Diving, open water swimming, artistic swimming, water polo, and, of course, swimming.  The TV/streaming schedule for 2023 isn't out yet, but I'm sure the coverage won't be anywhere near as comprehensive this year.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't show water polo, open water swimming or artistic swimming at all.  And I'm 50-50 on whether I think they'll show any diving.

Which is more than I can say for beach volleyball.  In 2019, they had live coverage every day, showing multiple matches on the main court.  Last year, nothing!  And that was when the Olympic Channel was still on the air!  So, unless somebody else picked up the rights (which I haven't heard, although Tennis Channel has been showing some AVP matches, so it's possible), it'll likely be the same for the 2023 World Championships.

Ditto with volleyball.  The World League and World Championships will determine the first few berths in the Olympic tournaments.  (I think they even had the final Olympic qualifiers in the spring of 2021.)  So, they're important tournaments.  I'm not expecting to see much, or any, of them in this Olympic cycle.

Likewise, the Olympic Channel used to have all kinds of World Cup and smaller European events in gymnastics.  Those were also important for Olympic qualifying, especially with the individual berths available on each apparatus.  We don't get to see those anymore.  Now, it's just the U.S.-based events, as well as the World Championships in October.

Us track & field fans have actually been pretty lucky, so I can't (and shouldn't) complain.  Frankly, NBC's track & field coverage is better outside of the Olympics than during them!  Every Diamond League meet is live on Peacock and also on CNBC (either live or on tape delay), and several U.S.-based meets have been on NBC.  The U.S. Nationals and World Championships will be on NBC and CNBC or USA, as well.  But track & field is really the only sport still getting regular TV coverage.

TV coverage isn't anywhere near as important in the era of streaming.  I get that.  But the exposure these sports got on the Olympic Channel was tremendous!  You actually were somewhat familiar with the athletes (and not just the Americans!) going into the Olympics.  That simply won't be the case in Paris.  Because we won't get to see the World Championships (or these smaller events) in those other sports.

Will it be different next summer, when it's Olympic Trials instead of just U.S. Nationals?  Probably.  I remember two years ago, NBC had primetime coverage of both swimming and track & field virtually every night for like two weeks straight!  And they showed the Olympic Trials in a good number of other sports, too.  But, they also had both NBCSN and the Olympic Channel in 2021.  Now they don't.  Which could definitely change things.

NBC had its reasons for shutting down both NBCSN and the Olympic Channel.  They obviously did what they thought was the best for them as a business.  And I'm sure they based their decision on which sports to continue covering off a number of factors, total viewership most likely being primary among them.  They still show the sports that people watch.  The ones that fewer people do, they don't.  I get it, but it's a shame.

Times like this are why the Olympic Channel was so great.  U.S. Nationals and World Championships leading into the Olympics are a great lead-up for the following summer.  This summer's lead-up will be a little different.  With no Olympic Channel, there'll be fewer Worlds that we're able to watch.  Which is too bad.  Because the summer of 2019 was pretty fun!