To Spoil or Not To Spoil

The biggest controversy from the first few days of the 2012 London Summer Olympics has been the tape delayed coverage given to Americans by NBC. NBC has chosen not to show some of the bigger events (mostly swimming and gymnastics) live on any of its television networks and instead hold them until primetime when there’s a bigger audience.

This decision by NBC, which almost everybody seems to agree is poor, has led to many viewers finding out the results of these events prior to the airing on television through news outlets like ESPN and social media outlets like Twitter.

You really can’t blame news outlets like ESPN because one of the biggest goals and responsibilities of journalists are to break the news when the news breaks. So, if Michael Phelps or Ryan Lochte win swimming medals in London when it’s early or mid-morning in the United States the news will report it when it happens, as they should. It’s not the American media’s responsibility to wait until Americans have had the chance to see it to announce the results. However, NBC News giving the results before its own broadcast is another story.

This poses a major issue for me that I struggled with for the first few days of the Olympics. What should I do about my Facebook fanpage for my sports podcast Basement Sports?

Typically when sports news breaks I publish it immediately upon seeing or hearing it on the podcast’s fanpage (because I view it as a form of media). However, some of these updates are a few hours old before I get the chance to post them, because of my day job that does not include access to a computer throughout the afternoon hours five days a week.

The 2012 London Summer Olympics are the first Olympic games during my podcast’s tenure and so I found myself having to deal with something new in attempting to cover a sporting event (the largest one at that) on such a time difference.

My journalistic experience and instincts tell me to publish the results of the events when they occur or at least when I see or hear about them. However, I’ve refrained from doing that thus far and have made the decision to keep doing so until the events have completed on American television. Here’s why …

I’ve long believed and told people that I didn’t think spoilers affected my feelings about movies or television shows and I honestly believe that to be the case. Does knowing Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father prior to watching the “Star Wars” trilogy affect the movie’s greatness? No. Knowing a surprise twist or ending to a film or TV show ultimately doesn’t change whether or not a movie is good and it shouldn’t have any result on whether or not you enjoy it either.

However, when it comes to sports spoilers are everything. Because the sole intention of sports is to win or lose knowing the outcome of the event really takes all of the fun and excitement out of watching it. Sure, many people will still watch the event despite knowing the results just to see exactly how it happened, as NBC’s Olympic ratings have suggested, but it just isn’t the same.

Unfortunately I’ve known almost every single major result before it aired on primetime. I just can’t manage to stay unplugged long enough not to find out the results even accidentally. For this reason the Olympics simply haven’t been nearly as fun or exciting as I anticipated.

I know that my not posting Olympics results until after they air on NBC on the Basement Sports podcast fanpage is likely not going to make a whole lot of difference for most sports fans, who like me probably already know the results anyway. But, I don’t want to spoil the fun and the excitement of the Olympics for those intentionally staying away from the results, because I know how much that sucks.