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Why Can't Sports Commentators Talk About, You Know... Sports?

Last week, I recorded about 10 hours of the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials that took place in Omaha, Nebraska. Last night, I gorged myself on the video, but I had to fast forward through much of it. 

It quickly became apparent that the commentators were directed to talk about almost anything except the actual swimming itself. NBC went out of its way to make the comments as inane as possible. 

The hidden message is that swimming is too boring to hold the average viewer’s interest. While it’s true that swimming is amongst the most boring spectator sports (and God bless my Mom for all the youth swim meets she sat through for me), the inane comments just reinforced that idea.

We learned that Dara Torres is old, that Phelps has big feet, that swimsuits are made with lasers from NASA, and that the Japanese press ignores Phelps (sacre bleu!) just to hound lesser-known swimmer, Hansen. We got human interest pieces and juicy gossip – and almost nothing about, you know, swimming.

I wanted to hear why the fastest swimmers are always in the middle lanes. (The water in those lanes offer the least resistance and therefore are given to the most qualified swimmers.) What about Phelps’ technique makes him so great? (Everything!) Is freestroke all about the arms? (It’s not. Great swimmers propel themselves with their stomaches and body core as much as with their arms.) What is the advantage to staying underwater after a flip turn? (Less water resistance) What makes a fast pool? (Yes, some pools are faster than others!)

This portends bad things for the Beijing Olympics. We may be doomed to hundreds of hours of inane bullshit human interest pieces. I’m preparing my mute button already.

P.S. I was already disappointed weeks ago by ABC/ESPN’s poor coverage of the European Cup. You can’t tell me that out of 300 million Americans, ABC couldn’t find two sportscasters with American accents who know the sport of soccer.