Sigh / Seuftz!

WEG Television Coverage on NBC

NBC has the exclusive for airing WEG, at least here in the States. They’ve been making a big deal about how it’s more television coverage than WEG has ever gotten in years past! Yes, folks, we are getting a total of 6.5 hours of television coverage on NBC.

Here’s the official schedule:

Sunday, September 26 at 12-1:30pm EST (opening ceremonies, team reining)
Sunday, October 2 at 1-6pm EST (eventing cross country and jumping phases)
Sunday, October 10 at 4-6pm (show jumping, closing ceremony)

On the first Sunday, the reining team competition will be aired live with commentator Aaron Ralston, a reiner who happened to be on the gold-medal winning team and the individual bronze medalist at the 2006 WEG. America’s Horse Daily has the full scoop on the reining coverage. Reining will be included in all three broadcasts. I would expect we’ll also see some eventing and show jumping highlights, as they are the more popular spectator sports. Especially since the popularity of NBC’s Rolex 3Day coverage is a big part of the reason they agreed to devote so much air time to WEG.
And note, too, that while NBC is airing the Games, they are not producing or covering it themselves. The WEG Foundation had to buy the air time and do the producing themselves. However, that does allow them to get the advertising dollars for the commercials aired during the broadcast.