Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been an avid watcher of the Olympics since he was a little kid. He loves watchng the Winter and Summer games almost equally. He has a number of vivid Olympic memories. He actually anticipates watching the games while they are on.

Of course, he hates the absolute morons who run NBC and are doing their best to drive your Maximum Leader away from the Olympics completely.

Allow your Maximum Leader to say a few things about his Olympic viewing. First off, he’s come to the conclusion over the past few years that he isn’t going to actively root for sports where a subjective call by a judge determines the outcome of the event. This conclusion has pretty much eliminated his enjoyment of freestyle ski jumping, figure skating, most snowboarding, and moguls competitions (to name a few). This is not to diminish the athletic accomplishment of the athletes. They are truly world-class phenomina. But your Maximum Leader has grown so weary of judging scandals and the nit-picking that he can’t get himself worked up to view those sports. (He will still watch, except figure skating - he’s had enough of figure skating.)

Your Maximum Leader prefers competitions that are determined by objective measures, like time or distance or a score. He loves hockey, skiing, luge, skeleton, bobsled and the like. He also knows that, with the exception of hockey, he only watches these sports every four years.

So why is NBC doing all it can to completely screw up Olympic coverage? Are they really that friggin stupid? Are they actually retarded?

It was a few Olympics ago when your Maximum Leader really noticed that it was getting bad. Too many human interest stories and interviews that were intermintably long. Too many sports never made it to TV. Too much face time for the anchors. Too much viewing of only Americans.

To paraphrase Ian Fleming, the first time NBC screws up Olympic coverage is bad luck, the second time they screw it up is coincidence, the third time is enemy action. Yes, NBC is the enemy here and they are going their best to piss off your Maximum Leader and diminish his Olympic viewing experience. They have fucked up their late-night lineups, and now they are continuing to do their best to destroy the Olympics. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t need to see one event over and over and over again. There are hours and hours of competitive sport taking place. NBC has at least four (cable) channels on which they can broadcast these events. But we get the same shit hour after hour.

Here is your Maximum Leader’s plea to NBC Sports. Listen. If you insist on having this human interest/light sport Olympic broadcasting on NBC itself, so be it. But at least show other competitions on USA, CNBC and NBC/Universal. You can even show sports where Americans aren’t going to be contenders. These athletes are the best of the best and are worth watching no matter what country they are representing. Show them. Don’t continue to be putzes and limit what we can see to what your sports producers think will draw in the most viewers. Your sports producers aren’t that smart if past history is any indication. NBC Sports coverage generally sucks. The NFL gave you Sunday Night Football to squeeze you for cash (that you were happy to pay since no one was watching NBC Sports). You got the NHL for the game of the week on Sunday because (let’s face it) the NHL did all they could to kill themselves and they desperately needed any big-time teevee outlet to show games. (And as bad as things are at NBC, they are better than the Versus network.) So, your Maximum Leader recommends that you stop relying on your sports producers and start listening to your Maximum Leader. Show more sports and give Bob Costas and Dan Patrick less face time. We’ll all be happier.

Carry on.