NBC's Men's Gymnastics coverage was horrible

I'm going into each day of programming by staying away from news and sports media websites.  I'm staying away from social media sites like Twitter, which really break sports news faster than Facebook does.

But what NBC did last night with their coverage of the men's gymnastics team finals was just mind-baffling.  How do you only air 3 of the 6 rotations in men's gymnastics when it came to the American team?  Americans are tuning into NBC primetime in record numbers even though it's airing in a tape delay.  Why?  Because we don't have the hours to sit at a computer during the daytime when we can watch it on TV.

I reached out to NBC Sports and we shall see if they respond to comment on this question.

With the American women's team competing in team finals tonight, there is no doubt in my mind that all four rotations will be aired.  More people tune in for the women's gymnastics coverage.

Look at the ratings from this summer's United States Olympic Trials:

In complete overnight ratings for Friday primetime, NBC's swimming drew a 4.0 overnight -- up 54% from 2008 -- followed by NBC's gymnastics trials drawing a 5.3 overnight -- up 47% from 2008 and the highest gymnastics overnight since 2000.

Meanwhile, the Sunday broadcast:

The two-hour gymnastics broadcast, averaging a 3.2 adults rating, followed track and field (1.4 adults rating) and swimming (2.1 adults rating) for a 2.5 showing among the demo for the night. NBC also averaged a dominant 8.3 million viewers.

If you want to know ratings coverage from the men's competition, good luck finding it.  The Saturday portion of the trials aired in the afternoon as opposed to airing in primetime.

The first week of the Summer Olympics is dedicated to swimming and women's gymnastics.  All you have to do is look at the primetime ratings.

Saturday night's ratings had more to do with the showdown between Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, which almost never happened, than it did to do with the men's gymnastics qualifying.

The 15.8/29 national rating and share for the first night of competition was 14% higher than Beijing (13.9/27, which featured live coverage of Phelps’ first of his eight gold medals) and 34% Higher than Athens — the last European Olympics.

This is what happened on Sunday, thanks to swimming, women's gymnastics, and synchronized springboard diving.

NBC averaged 35.45 million viewers and a 19.5 rating/32 share in households for the night, up from 27.4 million for the primetime portion of Saturday's Olympics coverage.

Of course, most of those numbers are daylong numbers as opposed to the primetime hours.