Happy Accidents and NBC Awash at Copacabana

Saturday in the Olympic city presented several happy accidents.

The day started with a stroll to USA House, the USOC's remote office and hospitality suite for the Games, to meet with a public relations colleague.

The house -- in a Rio school that Team USA is renovating -- remains an active construction site with painting, banner installation and other hard hat activities underway.

I did not yet go inside, but it will be exciting to see how the location is transformed from now to volunteer training on Aug. 2.

Bidding adieu to my colleague, I headed across the street to the east end of Ipanema Beach, eventually walking to the rocky peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic. One of the remote Rio Media Center locations -- perhaps the most scenic of them all -- has a balcony and TV studios overlooking the most spectacular beach on earth.

Donning a media credential I was afforded a few minutes to soak in the media center views before climbing what the house manager described as "Rio's ant hill" where thousands of locals and tourists gather to applaud the sunset on clear evenings.

Something tells me these moments and views will remain all-time personal favorites from the 2016 Olympic experience as a wave of calm and peace of mind washed over me -- I will stress about Rio's five-ringed challenges no more!

Heading past Fort Copacabana and through the peninsula neighborhood, several billboards for what may be the Russia House came into view.

I could not help but wonder which athletes on the boards need to be painted over due to the Russia Olympic doping scandal -- the Russia House is typically a very popular venue -- wondering how it may be different in 2016.

Moving on to Copacabana Beach, a large, blue box on the beach proved to be a television viewing stand with a bridge across Ave. Atlantica to connect it to a Rio 2016 Media Center.

It was no accident the Games' most prominent broadcaster, NBC, occupied most if not all of the temporary compound.

As I came around the side of the blue box, it was surprising to spot a bulldozer, yellow or red caution tape and a few additional security folks keeping an eye on a small crowd gathered to look at the building.

Jutting out of the ground/beach level of the structure there was an elaborate and colorful TV studio -- I thought perhaps this was one of the TODAY Show sets.

Flashing my Rio Media Center badge, I was permitted closer inspection alongside reporters from O Globo, APF and a few photographers. Stern faces on the NBC production team told the tale -- the entire set had moments earlier been drenched by a huge winter wave crashing onto Copacabana Beach.

Oops!

About this time the AFP reporter introduced himself asking my news outlet, and I explained the Olympic blogger status.

"Well, here is your story today!" he said.

A story, indeed.

I spoke with a couple of the NBC personnel who confirmed one oversized wave came up over their custom-installed mini-sea wall facing the ocean side of their temporary set. The swell was intense enough to lift and leave behind about an inch of sand on the decorative tile flooring that some team members were starting to sweep or clean with shovels and mops. The wave's watermark extended almost all the way to the main road.

Other producers -- perhaps more senior NBC personnel -- exchanged hushed conversations while gazing upon the scene. About this time the O Globo reporter named Gabriella chatted up the cause of the surprise mayhem.

"It is the ressaca -- the winter tides like the one that crashed the new bike path a few weeks ago," she said.

As reported earlier this year, a new beachfront cycling structure was destroyed by a large wave, killing two riders. Apparently these winter tides bring a handful of larger waves which are impossible to predict.

Thank goodness folks were only soaked by Saturday's wave!

Most of the NBC folks started clamming up when they realized AFP, O Globo and bloggers were on the scene, but we did also confirm the furnished outdoor set is intended as the man NBC News, NBC Sports and Late Night programming with Carson Daly.

Seems like the perfect time to fly in Ryan Seacrest.

Get it? Seacrest.

With no more set-drenching waves upon us during my hour around the set, I moved on to visit the Olympic Mega-Store across the street from the Copacabana Marriott (my 2005 Rio holiday accommodations).

While staying at the hotel years ago, my then-girlfriend, her sister and I made friends with one of the masseuses employed by Marriott, but I learned he had long-since moved on from tourist muscle treatments.

In the Mega-Store, a few key items and details were revealed:

There are few items available for XXL (locally, size GG) male Olympic fan.

The organizing committee was noticeably conservative with regards to Olympic pin designs (far fewer than in Athens, Beijing or London).

Inflatable fan gear apparently is popular -- people were snapping up oversized "mascot hands" for clapping and blow-up Rio Olympic torches (could these become this Olympiad's "red mittens" must-have souvenir?).

Much of the beach gear and shirts is very colorful and festive. Just wish they had more of it in my size.

I bumped into some of the students from Ball State University (first met at Rio Media Center on Friday) as they enjoyed the scene.

The next happy accident was spotting Samsung's pavilion adjacent to the Olympic store. It is sort of nondescript, mostly glass and marked with only subtle logos for the Worldwide Olympic partner brand. 

With the help of a translator, I interviewed the Samsung manager on site, and she shared a few details on which collectors may pin their hopes:

• There are 30 Samsung pins, all in the shape of the latest Galaxy mobile device

• Most of the designs (20 of them) feature a sports pictogram from archery to weightlifting

• The other eight designs feature icons of Rio from Havianas and beach umbrellas to Sugarloaf Mountain and the Christ The Redeemer statue

• A black felt presentation board is free for mounting the pins

• As visitors redeem their passport stamps (two stamps = one pin) they draw the pins out of a mystery box to provide a random element to the promotion

• If you pull out of the box a design you already have, you are encouraged to exchange it with fellow collectors ("no returns" to the box for a another draw).

• Eight of the designs are only available at the Barra location for Samsung, with another eight exclusive to Copacabana, but the manager and translator smiled and said they would not reveal which eight are specific to the two pavilions.

I managed to earn or trade for 11 of the designs, and all were for sports, leading me to believe the eight local icon designs are either Barra-specific or they will be blended into the giveaways during the Games (akin to the U.K. icons suddenly appearing later in the London 2012 Samsung pin program).

Let the Samsung pin games commence!

My final three serendipitous moments of Saturday: Arriving at Co-Sport to collect my tickets two days before their ticketing center opens (oh, well); crossing paths with a U.S.O.C. friend while ordering pizza near the hotel (fun albeit brief visit); and stumbling in to a late-night dinner at the Veloso bar-cafe, now the Garota de Ipanema Cafe, the actual location where the world's second-most recorded pop song was written as inspired by a passerby teenage Girl from Ipanema. 

It was only after two caipirinhas that I noticed the writing on the wall (large, framed images of the hand-written music). 

Great fun to learn the back-story for the song while enjoying a wonderful meal.

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Sure Thing Prediction: NBC Guts Sochi Opening Ceremony

Before posting another update about the Olympic city experience, a word about NBC and a prediction for their Sochi coverage.

For the record, there are many aspects of NBC's Olympic coverage that I find O.K. Some of their feature reports and five-ringed vignettes are fun, and it is enjoyable to return from the Games experience to view their take on the action in an edited format. When there's time, it is fun to view select content at NBCOlympics.com.

With that said, I still cannot stomach archived John Tesh commentary from the times when they permitted him to dramatize figure skating or gymnastics. And there are other Olympic broadcasting ideas about which a strong opinion remains.

The part I definitely don't like, don't understand and will not likely ever concur with is the NBC Olympic producers' decision to alter the Olympic Opening Ceremony for U.S. broadcast, a terrible decision.

Here's NBC's recipe for "Olympic Opening Ceremony American Style" (their Salt Lake 2002 coverage is the only exception to this format) ...

1. Tape the full Olympic Opening Ceremony to "look live" with anchors/commentary
2. Lock producers/editors into editing bays at the NBC quadrant of the International Broadcast Center
3. Slice, dice, carve, mangle and blend on "grind" mode until just before 8 p.m. ET stateside air time
4. Serve up dramatically altered "American ready" version for the masses.

Readers of this blog may recall the London 2012 Opening Ceremony and revelations that entire segments of the event did not air in the USA. Boo! Hiss!

Why can't NBC quote from the Sochi organizing committee Opening Ceremony press kits (a minute-by-minute explanation of every scene in the ceremony meticulously prepared for broadcast reports to reference during the live event)? Why not put this factual document in the hands of Bob Costas and other hosts (Meredith Viera in London)? Would this help, perhaps, for stupid Americans to "get it" when something about the host nation is unveiled?

After catching up on just two days worth of TODAY Show segments from Sochi, with gleeful hosts poking fun at every opportunity and yuk-ing it up with xenophobic remarks about the host nation, I shutter to think how the executive producers already have their cut and gut sites set on Sochi's Opening Ceremony.

Will NBC cut to taped segments about record-setting security costs while American viewers miss out on a Russian history lesson presented on the field of play deemed "too Russian for USA viewers" [to understand]? Da!

Will NBC Olympic producers let the anchors bite their tongues during President Putin's appearance to officially open the Games? Nyet!

Will NBC harp on Torch Relay snafus in lieu of successes of one of the biggest flame caravans in Olympic history? Da!

Will the NBC Olympic broadcast cut to commercial with precision as the last few torchbearers are revealed and immediately after the cauldron ignites? Bероятно (probably).

The only thing that chaps my hide more than the editing is that the powers that be at NBC don't care that many people just want to see the real Opening Ceremony. At the IOC Conference on Women and Sport in February 2012, I posed questions about this topic to the media panel including one of NBC's top producers (the woman who later oversaw the London 2012 broadcast among the most, if not the most, senior producers for NBC Olympics). She sort of shrugged off my questions as if to say, "Meh! Will just do it our way" for ratings, for fun, or just because they can. "These are timing decisions," she said. How about these are business decisions?

What is your opinion on the NBC Olympic broadcast of the Opening Ceremony? Should they just air it intact, heavily edited or somewhere in the middle? Please look to the right column of this blog and cast your vote in the brief poll.

And enjoy watching the Olympics on NBC.

NBC Loves The Olympics $4.38 Billion Ways

Today in the International Olympic Committee's hometown Lausanne, Switzerland, I suspect several fishermen cast their lines from the northern banks of Lake Geneva.

But NBCUniversal landed the catch of the day -- and the next four Olympiads -- securing the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 Olympic Games' U.S. broadcast rights for a staggering $4.38 billion, according to published reports.

I once paid $4.38 for a Coca-Cola beverage in Lausanne, so maybe something in the water there gets people spending money.

The Los Angeles Times ran an interesting video and print report highlighting the NBCUniversal bid and the IOC. Though I was looking forward to a potential change up from NBC's "storytelling" from the Games (as noted in previous Olympic blog post), there is some comfort knowing that Bob Costas may be at the helm at the Games for another decade.

With Fox bidding, I shuttered to think of Bill O'Reilly spewing Olympic "commentary" for even a second.

Photo via Wikipedia

Televising the Games

Interesting read in today's New York Times regarding the U.S. Olympic broadcast rights process underway with major TV networks and the International Olympic Committee.

The report by Richard Sandomir paints the picture that the money may come in under past Games' agreements given the economy, changes at NBC and other factors. My gut is that with the Games coming to Rio de Janiero in 2016, with prime time competition options for U.S. broadcasts, NBC may be willing to take a hit in Sochi 2014 for the potential payoff two years later. What do you think? Post a comment by Dec. 31, 2010, and I'll send you a pin from this blog.

Photo of TV camera at Berlin 1936 Games via this Flickr account

T-Minus 100

Today marks just 100 days until the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Excitement is building ... just watched Team USA interviews and winter sport stunts in Rockefeller Center on NBC's TODAY Show.

I have yet to really start hunting for Vancouver tickets -- opening and closing ceremony are top priority, with snowboarding on the wish list, too (anyone out there already got their tickets?). I suppose after The Colbert Report announced sponsorship of U.S. Speedskating, tickets for the Oval will be on the hot ticket list, too.

Hope to see you in British Columbia in just 100 days!

Photo via Vancouver 2010.

100 Days from Olympic Day

Today was Olympic Day around the globe, and the morning started with a great NBC TODAY Show segment about the Chicago 2016 Olympic bid.

It was a low key holiday in Atlanta. I tried, but could not find details on the apparent local celebrations listed by Olympic Day organizers (until tonight, too late, I stumbled upon a listing on a website -- if I missed something big, read the following with a grain of salt).

To pause and commemorate things, this evening I took a walk through Centennial Olympic Park (which has a great virtual tour online) and asked a mix of locals and visitors if they knew what Olympic Day is or when it takes place -- to my surprise, one woman from Puerto Rico, who was posing for a photo with the park's monument to Modern Olympic Founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin, exclaimed "TODAY is Olympic Day, and my birthday, too!" (not surprising, no one else quizzed had any idea).

The walk provided a mixed bag of sentimentality and cynicism about the Olympic Movement and Atlanta's place in Olympic history.

On one hand, the Atlanta Olympic legacy including the vast urban park, other legacy venues and Turner Field (in view as I type this from high rise office downtown) are priceless. Almost every downtown Atlanta structure that borders Centennial Park -- except for The INFORUM, CNN Center and Tabernacle -- would not exist if the Games went to another city in 1996. And now that Centennial Olympic Park is in its adolescence, it is booming (remember when the trees were sticks in the ground? Now a gorgeous urban forest in bloom, and the fountains are all working again, post-drought!).

On the other hand, it seems sad that in spite of an army of employees and even larger army of volunteers rallied with the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) from 1989 (bid days) to 1996, very few in Atlanta seem to celebrate or remember the Games on what is supposed to be its biggest day of celebration in a non-Olympic year.

They do come out of the woodwork every so often, getting out the pin collections and donning Olympic shirts from the glory days. There was a good (and large) celebration of ACOG's/Atlanta's 10th anniversary held in 2006, so that balances out some of what's negativity on the brain (the BBC's Kurt Barling filed an excellent report on the Atlanta Games legacy just after the 10th anniversary event -- be sure to watch the videos, too).

And then you look at the Los Angeles area's ambitious 25th anniversary gathering on the horizon and wonder "what will Atlanta remember/celebrate in 2021?"

Looking forward, it is cool to note that the 2016 host will be selected just 100 days from now. Here's hoping the 2009 Olympic Day celebrations across the U.S. only helped in that decision before the I.O.C. And perhaps, sometime in 2041, Chicago will celebrate its 25th Olympic anniversary.

Kicking Myself

I'm kicking myself for missing today's NBC Sports premiere of their Paralympics special coverage. They have a range of special broadcasts taped in Beijing, providing U.S. audiences with more opportunities to connect with Paralympians. Here's a link to the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) press release with more details (disclosure: the IPC is an Edelman pro-bono client). Marking calendar now for the upcoming broadcasts.