Not Live, From London

Raise your hand if you're one of the thousands of people who tweeted something along the lines of "Hey, NBC, people will watch live sports on Sunday afternoons. Signed - the NFL."

NBC refuses to do so. NBC refuses to do anything that might compromise its primetime ratings, which, by the way, have been up substantially over the Olympics of four years ago in Beijing.

And why? Because the Olympics have succeeded in attracting viewers who traditionally don't watch sports on TV - mostly women and BrotherBlog - and many of these viewers either aren't going to check who won an event in advance or know the outcome and will watch the primetime package anyway.

And what are these non-traditional viewers watching?

In order, it probably goes like this:

1. gymnastics
2. gymnastics
3. gymnastics
4. Michael Phelps
5. beach volleyball

TigerBlog actually wonders what NBC would have done had these Games been awarded to New York City. Would the network have been okay with having these events live in primetime, even though that would mean that the drama couldn't be pre-packaged?

TB thinks not. He thinks that to NBC, primetime at the Olympics is meant to be something along the lines of a reality show, and to see who the last one voted off is is what holds the audience. Live events don't always fit nicely into time slots, especially in gymnastics.

This decision by the network might be unpopular. Actually, it is unpopular - but that's just among sports fans.

It's not going to change, however.

TB gets that. What he doesn't understand is how NBC could show on tape delay the U.S. vs. South Korea in the women's epee fencing semifinal, a match that the U.S. was clearly losing, while at the exact same to-the-second moment, the U.S. and Russia were heading towards overtime in the bronze medal match.

And you want to talk about pressure? How about a bronze medal match?

You get to the semifinals and you have to win one of the next two to win a medal. Except if you lose the semifinal, you go from the verge of competing for a gold medal to the reality of having a loss deny you any medal.

That's why the fencing match against Russia was so heart-stopping. And only available online?

The U.S. won that match, giving Princeton two more bronze medals, with Susannah Scanlan and Maya Lawrence on the team.

Scanlan and Lawrence were part of a three bronze-medal day for the U.S. Saturday, along with Glenn Ochal, who won a bronze in the fours rowing.

Princeton's Donn Cabral didn't win a medal, but he did some extraordinary things in his two Olympic races, first earning a spot in the final and then leading for three laps and ultimately finishing eighth. Expect Cabral to be back in 2016.

TB was a bit frustrated with the steeplechase final. He went to NBC's website for the stream and was stuck with some buffering for awhile, so there were only three laps to go when he finally was able to see Cabral.

The Princeton medal count - which can be seen in a graphic on the main webpage - now stands at one gold, two silvers and three bronzes.
Still with a shot at a medal is Princeton's Diana Matheson, whose Canadian women's soccer team is in the dreaded semifinal against the U.S. today at 2:45. Japan and France meet in the other semifinal.

This, of course, begs the question of which team to root for, the Americans, because they're the Americans, or the Canadians, because they have a Princeton alum.

TigerBlog has loved the Olympics, even if things like the 100 meter final aren't being shown live and even if the announcers at beach volleyball insist on calling them Kerry and Misty, instead of by their last names, something that has tortured TB to an extent that surprises even him.

And hey, it's been a great Olympics for Princeton. Six medals. Maybe another one.

Go Canada.