NBC Soccer Coverage Goes Back to the Future

Ever since the U.S. lost to Nigeria in the Beijing Olympic preliminaries, I've personally stopped paying attention to the Olympics. Period. That includes the soccer. Maybe I shouldn't admit this, but Tuesday's Argentina/Brasil match flew completely off my radar. Argentina -- the defending Gold medalists -- won 3-0 thanks to a brace from Athletico Madrid star Kun Agüero.

I missed the match and that's a bad job out of me. Turns out, I wasn't the only person to miss out on things as NBC decided to revert back to the 1980s and insert commercials during live play.

My friend Jon likes to joke how he remembers that TNT did this when it held the rights to the 1990 World Cup. (It happened for the 1986 version, too.) Frankly it's hard to believe that in a match of arguably the two best national sides -- even at the U-23 level -- in the year 2008 soccer fans would have to endure cutaways from the action.

NBC can justify this however it likes. Considering this Olympiad has been a rating bonanza (even without yours truly) it has made plenty of ad revenue from Michael Phelps alone and wouldn't need to sell other sports short. To be fair, though, in the U.S. matches NBC was commercial-free. Still, someone at 30 Rock Plaza ought to realize the significance of Argentina/Brasil. Fortunately nobody scored during the breaks.

It's bad enough NBC employed Marcelo Balboa after his train-wreck behind the mic at the 2006 World Cup. Hiring poor announcers is one thing, but cutting away from the action is entirely inexcusable. Understandably every in NBC coverage is U.S.-centric, but it's unfair to people who follow this global sport to shortchange the action.

It's not 1990 anymore. Soccer fans in America aren't going to stand for this.

Luckily for soccer fans, this is the only time NBC is involved. Hopefully they'll learn their lesson for the Olympic final between Argentina and Nigeria.