The Associated Press reports that NBC has inked a deal to keep its exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to the Olympic Games through the year 2032, thus ensuring that the biannual pastime of complaining about NBC’s Olympics coverage will endure for at least another 18 years. No other networks were even invited to bid for the rights because, as International Olympic Committee chairman Thomas Bach put it, “We didn’t see any reason to take any risk with regards to broadcast and presentation of the Olympic Games in the United States.” So the head of the Olympics is openly trolling Twitter at this point.
The deal covers the Winter Olympics of 2022, 2026, and 2030 in addition to the Summer Olympics of 2024 and 2028. The Summer Olympics of 2032 are also included, although by that time they will be the Space Olympics, and viewers will have the opportunity to laser-bitch about NBC’s cyber-coverage of every zero-gravity gelatin swim heat. Likewise, audiences nationwide will electro-bemoan the network’s refusal to televise action that may or may not be perceived to have taken place at the postmodern pentathlon. And globally minded sports fans will surely Google-voice frustration with NBC’s jingoistic focus on athletes from Nuclear Federation Alpha. “Hey, NBC, how about a little screen time for the aspiring champions from Nation Other?” Feel free to copy that previous sentence down so that you can paste it into a Facebook neuro-transmission 18 years from now.