I’ve never watched the Paralympics before today. It’s an easy
thing to miss seeing, seeing as how nobody seems to want to show it. NBC, for
all their über-liberal stances, doesn’t seem to want to put their money where
their mouth is and show it on NBC. (They talk the talk, but they won’t walk the
walk.) I heard they’re showing 5 hours of it on their sports channel:
whoop-de-do! Well, at least I guess we should be glad they’re showing us any
at all, huh?
So I made an effort to seek it out, and I finally found some
by accident on NBC Sports Network (they haven’t advertised it at all from what
I’ve seen), and I watched it. And I was just starting to really get into it,
when it was over
(!!). And then they showed some hour-long puff piece on some MLS player I’d
never heard of (one hour: as long
as the Paralympics piece they showed!). What the hell? I thought NBC wanted to
help change people’s view of social issues. I guess not if they might not cash
in, huh? Lame.
The fact is, apparently this is by far the best Paralympics ever. They have been selling out tickets for events all
over the place, and there have been a bunch of amazing performances. I didn’t
know what to expect, so I watched what little there was to see, because I’d
never seen it before, and I found a completely different sort of thing than I
was expecting. And way better and cooler than I could have imagined. (I think I
figured it wouldn’t be that good because nobody ever seems to want to show it.)
By the time it was over, I was literally yelling at the TV for cutting it off!
It was really great, and I think the very least NBC could do
would be to devote their sports network to it while it’s going (you know: the
whole time). People have to see it to see
if they want to watch it, and if they can’t see it, they’ll never know. Well, I
looked for it, and I got a taste, and I want to see more. And I’m very
disappointed there isn’t more, at least not on NBC. (All I can think is that
they had made so many people mad during the regular Olympics, they didn’t want
to take a chance at alienating less people during the Paralympics. And if that
was the issue, then mission accomplished! {And a good job, too!})
Now, I’m not just trying to jerk NBC’s chain. I’m just
saying that I think people really may enjoy the Paralympics more than they
might expect. But they might never know, if someone doesn’t take a chance and
put it on prime time TV. See what I mean?
