Day 585: Olympic Coverage, Part 2

So, this is my first Olympic viewing experience outside of the United States… and it’s been… well… educational to say the very least.

The first lesson is this: Europeans enjoy different sports than American’s. Actually, scratch that, most of the world enjoy different sports than American’s. But this shouldn’t be a big surprise, right? After all, I’m sure we all know America’s national sport, Baseball, only ranks 7th in worldwide sports viewership, with about 500 million fans. Or maybe you don’t know. What in the world could be more popular than Baseball? Well, I will tell you:

1. Futbal/Soccer, there is no secret that American’s are way behind the 8-ball when it comes to accepting soccer as a legitimate sport. But, with an estimated 3.3 – 3.5 billion fans worldwide, we’re not just behind the 8-ball, but completely out of touch with reality.

2. Cricket, with an estimated 2 – 3 billion fans worldwide, I would assume I could find one person to explain the rules of this sport to me… but alas… I must run in the wrong circles.

3. Field hockey, no… not Ice Hockey… FIELD Hockey rakes 3rd with 2 – 2.2 billion fans worldwide.

4. Tennis, with 1 billion fans.

5. Volleyball, with 900 million fans.

6. Table tennis (ping pong), also with around 900 million fans.

That right folks, table tennis, the Olympic sport that prompts every American to ask the question, “but why?” is more popular than Baseball.

So, that being said, it shouldn’t surprise you that I’ve seen more Ski Jumping this year than Figure Skating.

In fact, Figure Skating is only aired live here, which is around two or three in the morning London time… yet Ski Jumping, Biathlon, and Cross Country Skiing isn’t just aired live, but also repeated during the day… in it’s entirety. This includes all qualification rounds and final rounds.

I’ve seen entire qualification rounds of ski jumping multiple times. I watched the entire 2x15 Kilometer Men’s Cross Country Skiing Pursuit competition without interruption… yet, I’ve only seen about two complete Figure Skating performances. The afternoon after the Figure Skating Pair’s medals were awarded the 24 hours coverage we’ve been “enjoying” in London dedicated a thirty minute block to Figure Skating… as you can imagine, 30 minutes was really only enough time to show the three medal winning couples… nothing else. It was sad.

I want my NBC.

But there is a silver lining. I plan on joining a Ski Jumping fantasy league next year… it’s going to be sweet!