SUMMON THE HEROES: We're only halfway through 2006, and already there's controversy surrounding the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The issue: NBC has asked the IOC to schedule the swimming finals during Beijing's morning hours instead of the customary afternoon slot, so that American viewers will be able to watch the events live in primetime -- thereby juicing NBC's ratings, which traditionally get slaughtered when the Olympics take place on the other side of the planet and thus must be aired on heavy-duty delay. The Chairman of Australia's Seven Network is bummed ("the IOC cares more about the North American TV viewer than billions of viewers throughout Europe and Asia"), the swimmers will presumably be bummed ("it's the natural body cycle to be at its best in the afternoon after a day of preparation," sayeth the 1992 and 1996 1500m gold medalist Kieren Perkins), and so forth.
But then there's this: according to a recent AP article, the bulk of the IOC's revenues, which in turn go to the host cities and various international federations and national Olympic committees, come from the sale of TV rights. And 60% of those TV rights funds come from the United States. So -- not to sound too American-flag-wavy or anything -- if the IOC decides that making NBC happy is an economically rational thing to do, I'm not exactly adding my name to the bummed list.
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