NBC faced a lot of criticism on Friday when it refused to stream the Opening Ceremony live, tape delaying the event until hours later on the East Coast and making viewers in the Pacific Time Zone wait even longer to see Paul McCartney lead one of the world’s largest sing-alongs. But never fear this minor inconvenience, assured The Peacock, because it planned on streaming every sporting event online. “All 32 Sports. All 302 Events. All LIVE from London,” reads the top of NBCOlympics.com.
As they often say about the best laid plans, things have gone awry. First, prospective viewers found out they needed to have a username and password through their cable company to actually watch the live video, a requirement not widely circulated in the advertising. Then, with a majority of the Internet tuning in to watch the Phelps/Lochte 400 IM showdown — which wasn’t broadcast live on any of NBC’s various channels, another black eye for the network — the streaming service had some issues.
Deadspin’s resident video wizard Timothy Burke was on the case all day Saturday, with his findings pointing to a problem across every popular browser:
