The Olympics Are Over = Life Sucks Again

If you had the opportunity to train for any sport for a full year, would you be able to become a world-class athlete?

I could. 

Maybe? Now that the Olympics are over, I think I may be delusional and having withdrawals. What am I going to watch when I get home now? I've watched all 4 seasons of LOST and Heroes doesn't start until next month! Yeesh.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics came to a beautiful conclusion last night with the closing ceremonies. Not only was this a particularly special year for the Olympics to the Chinese and their world resurgence, but this 29th Olympiad was also special for the world of digital entertainment. NBC Universal, the official sponsor of the Olympics, made ambitious plans to provide thousands of hours of live and on-demand broadcasts of all the athletic events this summer, but they needed some help. MSN's work with Control Room providing comprehensive online coverage of last year's Live Earth concerts caught NBC's attention enough to form a partnership with MSN. The ending result was the largest online broadcasting event in history.

For the first time in Olympic history, viewers could watch their favorite games anytime and any where they had access to the internet. In an interview with Billboard, Perkins Miller (NBC Sports and Olympics senior VP of digital media) said that "if you spend any time hanging out in a room of 25-year-olds on the weekend, you'll find laptops all over the place," and that it's important for the network to "deliver the content to them where they want it."

With more people watching TV shows online (me included!), NBC chose wisely to use the internet to broadcast the Olympics. Now more than ever, people have more opportunities to watch the Olympics, root on their home country, and in my case, feed a growing addiction. It's going to be interesting how this will affect other sports coverages now that the Olympics are done and future Olympic games. 

So, Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals, eh? Puh-leeze, I got that. Excuse me while I start my year-long training.