That’s often been the question I’ve had with Olympic coverage. You never really know what you’re watching happening now or earlier. Fortunately, with the imminent convergence of TV and Internet it should get a little better. But, for now, it’s still painfully obvious that the TV rights-holder, NBC, is living in the past.

At 8:00 last night NBC finally got around to showing the opening ceremonies. In reality, the confetti had already been cleaned up, the games were well underway and medals were already around some athlete’s necks.

Sports television has become such a glitzy and contrived production that mostly surrounds the actual event rather than shows it. Sometimes I wonder if the lunar landing was real or a made-for-tv sci-fi mini-series.

At 8:00 last night—a beautiful August Friday evening—I was doing anything but watching TV. I was outside playing baseball with the kids. I had no interest in watching the opening ceremonies even though earlier in the day I was amazed at some of the still shots I saw and that I posted here.

This morning when I read this New York Times article, I really see it both ways. As the writer put it, NBC was playing a game of whack-a-mole, trying to get Internet companies around the globe to pull down video clips of the ceremonies.

My question is: why didn’t NBC show the ceremonies live and replay it again at 8pm to a prime-time audience? It’s all about ad revenue to them. Couldn’t they have theoretically doubled the revenue by showing it twice? (I know it doesn’t work that way, but…) Sure, they wouldn’t have gotten the viewers at 6am eastern time, but then those people would have watched it in prime-time.

NBC paid $894 million for the broadcast rights and as Gary Zenkel, the president of NBC Olympics, was quoted in the Times: “We have a billion dollars worth of revenue at stake here, so that means we’re not public television, for better or worse.”

I can’t argue with that. Unfortunately, television viewers don’t typically think that way. And, in an age where you can still find anything free online—from music to video—how can you blame them?

As far as I’m concerned Canada’s CBC provides the best Olympic coverage. Less frills and more live coverage, so it was no surprise that they showed the ceremonies live.

NBC is starting to get it. All of their cable entities are providing coverage and there is a huge amount of coverage on their websites. They are getting there, but instead of worrying what everyone else is doing or sharing online, they should work to perfect their product. If what they provide is as close to perfect and timely as possible, why would anyone want to watch some guy’s cell phone video from the nose-bleed seats at Beijing’s Olympic Stadium?