NBC is well into its first week of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, but has had to do without two of its highly promoted events. Due to high winds (reaching 40 to 60 miles per hour) and dangerously cold temperatures, two events that were originally scheduled for this past weekend had to be postponed. Those were the men’s downhill on Saturday and the women’s giant slalom on Sunday.
The giant slalom was supposed to feature American Mikaela Shiffrin, who won a gold medal in the 2014 Sochi Games and is part of NBC’s promotion for the Olympics. So NBC had to shuffle its schedule to feature men’s and women’s slopestyle, which were originally slated to air on NBCSN both nights.
Luckily for the Peacock, Americans won gold medals in both slopestyle events. But skiing is normally a big draw for the network’s Olympics coverage, along with figure skating. NBC did have live figure skating on Saturday and Sunday, but no skiing events meant a shuffling of events from NBCSN to the main NBC.
NBC announced during Sunday’s primetime coverage that the men’s downhill and the women’s giant slalom would be rescheduled for Thursday, which means a rather busy primetime that includes the men’s short program in figure skating and men’s skeleton gold medal final runs. It’s likely that NBCSN will carry some events to accommodate the changes.
No matter how much NBC promotes the Olympics, an outdoor event such as skiing is dependent on the weather. High winds, plus the extreme cold isn’t doing the network any favors. If you watched any of the men’s ski jumping on Saturday or women’s slopestyle on Sunday, you noticed how the winds wreaked havoc on the event.
At the mercy of the weather in Pyeongchang, NBC (and Olympic officials) is hoping that there won’t be any more delays this week.
[Deadline]