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.
Sports Illustrated's NBA scribe Zach Lowe was only able to watch half of the race:
John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal took to Twitter to investigate, and found that things were not going well:
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:
The day's events are winding down in London, so the NBC engineers will have all night to fix the issues plaguing users. It would probably be wise to get things in working order by Monday morning, when offices across the country will be logging on to watch a full day of competition.
Check out Team Mom on Yahoo! Sports:
Other Olympics Content on Yahoo! Sports:
• NBC cuts Opening Ceremony segment -- What you didn't see
• Japanese equestrian defies Father Time as oldest competitor at London
• Photos: U.S. athletes at the Parade of Nations