I woke up this morning thinking about how much I hate Bob Costas and the way he has attempted to interject controversy into every aspect of NBC’s Olympic coverage. The Winter Olympics are at the top of my TV viewing list right now and I have tried to watch every second I possibly can. It’s amazing to see athletes who love their sport compete with everything they have and who require nothing but the thrill of the competition itself and the joy of representing their country.
The Olympics represents everything that is true and good about athletics in a sporting world that is frequently overshadowed by such Mickey Mouse characters as Terrell Owens and Ron Artest. Yes, there is Bode Miller, but just how put off can you be by his claim that he once skied drunk the morning after he won the overall title of World Cup skiing, the biggest prize in skiing short a gold metal?
If he had not partied hard after winning such a major prize, I would have questioned whether he was a true skier seeing as though aprCB(s alcoholic beverages play such a role in the skiing culture.
The fact of the matter is that NBC and the huge Olympic corporate sponsors have put a ton of money on the line to be the face of the 2006 Winter Olympics. NBC wants each gold medal race event to be a “Super Bowl” in itself in order to gain the largest possible ratings. So how do they do it? The standard operating procedure of Bob Costas seems to be hyping events by making them controversial.
This tasteless attempt to bring attention to these events is the exact antithesis of what the Olympics represent. Is it any wonder that NBC’s ratings are down? Instead of celebrating these unbelievable athletes who have selflessly trained for years to compete at the highest level of their sport, NBC and Costas have decided to pit them against one another and create bad blood that did not exist before the Winter Games began.
Blowing up little tiffs between speed skating teammates or publicly humiliating a female teenage snowboarder just to better ratings has to be one of the most low brow moves a national network’s primary commentator can pull. Costas used to “get up close and personal” in order to generate viewer interest. Now he just gets up close and mean-spirited.
The Olympics needs to be a celebration, not an arena for unnecessary and ugly media hype. Costas needs to report the stories as they actually are and not twist or blow them out of proportion in ways that humiliate or degrade these exceptional athletes in an attempt to get better ratings for NBC. He is there to report the news, not make it.
The Olympic story is good enough as is. Lets watch the games with pride for our country and the athletes who have worked so hard to represent us.
For the sake of his network and his country, Bob Costas should treat these athletes with respect – win, lose or draw and stop selfishly creating controversy for the betterment of his company and their sponsors.
