| 23 February 2010
Dear Dick Ebersol and the rest of NBC;
I write this with the most sincere admiration for your broadcasts as I am a big fan of The Office and, well, The Office. Oh, I do like Law and Order: SVU as well, though I find B.D. Wong to be quite the pain in the ass. Please make the writers of SVU kill his character because he is insufferable and bothersome.
I'm sorry, I am clearly getting off track and I apologize. I blame it on this illness that has kept me from enjoying your Olympic coverage because I've been sleeping early since my return to Boston on Friday night. Speaking of your Olympic coverage, I am quite the hardcore hockey fan and I must say that your coverage of the sport not only bothers me but also disgusts me in the same breath.
For the past week or so there hasn't been one hockey game played on NBC, which is a staple channel in EVERY cable/television package across America. Instead, your company has shown this sport on the "family" networks of NBC, particularly MSNBC.Up until Saturday night it really didn't bother me since I was in Las Vegas and they showed every game out there, but once I got home, I must say I was quite perturbed when looking for the Germany/Belarus hockey game. Yes, an American was gleefully watching Germany/Belarus, the doormats of Group C, play hockey. Instead of watching hockey in beautiful high definition, I had to watch the game in standard definition as Comcast in Beverly (MA) doesn't provide MSNBC in HD, though I guess that is not your fault.
My real beef begins with your decision to put the USA/Canada hockey game on MSNBC. Mr. Ebersol, do you understand the implications that this game had on the United States? For those of us who were born after 1980, this was sizing up to be our defining moment (up until this point) in US Men's Hockey History. Why wasn't this game on NBC? Why didn't those who do get MSNBC in their standard, basic cable package able to watch this game? Why were they privy to watching ice dancing and WHO THE HELL THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE ICE DANCING IN THE OLYMPICS. Whoa, sorry about that, I flew off the handle for a minute.
Seriously though, Mr. Ebersol, the NHL and hockey in America has taken a distant seat from baseball (MLB), football (NFL), basketball (NBA) and dare I say racing (NASCAR). The game on Sunday night was a game hockey needed and I have to wonder how many people missed out on it. From one end of the ice to the other you had some of the best players in the world playing their game with passion, fury and excitement and it wasn't on a basic cable channel. Seriously?
Why were we subjected to watching ice dancing on Sunday on your major channel? Why couldn't ice dancing be on MSNBC? Was it because you knew that if ice dancing was on MSNBC no one would watch? Clearly people were tuned into this hockey game as 8.2 million people tuned in to the USA/Canada hockey game. 8.2 million people! How high would this have been if the game was on NBC or even USA (channel)?
I hope that someone other than your station gets Olympic coverage in 4 years because to have hockey on MSNBC is nothing but sham. Oh, and stop running ads for your awful talking head political shows during breaks.
Respectfully disagreeing,
Greg Ezell
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