Let’s get the credits out of the way first: this February, NBC Sports will stream more than 400 hours of live event coverage on NBCOlympics.com during the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games. That’s an astonishing amount of live video compared to the last Winter Games in Torino when the sum total was one hockey game. NBCOlympics.com also will offer more than 1,000 hours of full-event replays of all 15 sports, along with other coverage. Sounds like a veritable avalanche, eh?
Now for the context: that’s far less than the 2,000 hours of live coverage of the Beijing Olympics. More important, it’s a lot less than NBC has the right to deliver, ie everything live online in real time. This isn’t surprising. NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker told me last summer that live streaming devalues top events like the Olympics or Super Bowl — and there wasn’t a model that exists could show him how to avoid that. He hasn’t wavered. Given projections that NBC may lose money on an Olympics for the first time, it’s hard to see that changing.
At the same time, NBC will be using authentication to ensure that only viewers who already subscribe to multichannel providers who sign a deal with the network can watch live streaming video. That means the cut-the-cord crowd will have to find other options for many events, wait until it’s on demand or shrug off the Olympics. NBC is betting that last group will be the smallest.
Figure skating, alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, speed skating, snowboarding and short track primarily will air first on primetime TV whether they’re live or recorded. All in, NBC Sports plans to air 835 hours across six outlets: NBC; USA; MSNBC; CNBC; Universal HD and NBCOlympics.com. NBCOlympics Mobile will focus on results, breaking news and video highlights.
For our coverage of NBC Sports’ digital strategy for Vancouver 2010 Olympics, check out our Digital Olympics archives.

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