Rio’s Late Finals Are Even More Inconvenient for European Audiences

Editorial Coverage Sponsored By FINIS

When swimming kicks off in Rio Saturday morning, it will in fact be afternoon local time. Prelims have a 1 PM local start time, while finals are not scheduled to begin until 10PM. This schedule was created by NBC to optimize broadcasting, but the decision was met with outcry from athletes and coaches worldwide last spring.

A recent article in the DailyNews Hungary blames NBC and the large American audience for the Olympic finals times, which will be even worse for European audiences.

While NBC paid 7.75 billion to the IOC for the broadcasting rights, “such an amount of money could never have been paid by European public television” explains the piece.

In Hungary, swimming finals will take place very early in the morning,

“Whereas, everyone interested in the 400m medley swimming would need to set an alarm for quite an early time: Gergely Gyurta and Dávid Verrasztó will be found in the pool at around 3am, while Katinka Hosszú and Zsuzsanna Jakabos will start swimming at about sunrise. All of the semi-finals and finals of swimming will be held at 3-5am, August 7-14.”

Read more from DailyNews Hungary here.

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Clare Higgins

7 years ago

Yep- I’m contemplating being nocturnal for the week. Sure I could adapt to sleeping from 7pm to 2am…. ???

Kate

7 years ago

Australians have been getting up at odd hours for years to see their favourite athletes on TV.

Emma Burns

7 years ago

New Zealand gets good timing (for once!)

Bill Bell

7 years ago

If the prelims/semis/finals are @. 1 and 10 pm Rio time that’s 9 am and 6 pm on West Coast of USA and then add an hour for Miuntsun, two for Central and three for the a East Coast.

Not bad for American viewers but not so hotnfor rest of world.

But it’s all based on the golden rule, I.e., he who,has the gold makes the rules. In this case NBC has the gold so it made the rules and the IOC said, “Yes, Sir, anything you say, SIR!”