If you are interested in a look behind the curtain, then Adam Spangler at This Is American Soccer has the story as he interviews Michael Cohen, who overseas the production of Olympic soccer on the networks and cable channels and heads up the NBC Olympic soccer channel. Adam and Michael talk about his background and the changes he feels America is bringing to soccer coverage.

When the ball is on the field we wanted to be on the field. But when that ball is out of bounds, we want to bring those faces home because its all about branding these people as stars, whether they are MLS players or Messi, or Zidane. The idea is to get these people with their jerseys and their faces and the logos on the jerseys, according to my sponsorship people, home. So when the ball went out we’d cut low.

On a related note, you may have noticed my new sponsor banner at the top of the page. My college soccer coverage this season of the Panther’s and other regional teams will focus on video this year. My focus has always been field coverage, in part because my favorite view of the game has always been from the endline, a holdover from my playing days I’m certain. Do you enjoy the angle I offer, or should I move to the center line and up into the stands?

There will also be an online option. NBCOlympics.com will feature approximately 2,200 total hours of live streaming Olympic broadband video coverage, the first live online Olympic coverage in the United States. No indication of special requirements although this site notes Vista and Microsoft Silverlight. I think the only part they got right is probably the Silverlight piece. I’ve downloaded it (a cross-browser cross-platform plug-in according to Microsoft’s site) and I’ll do some testing on my Mac and PC. It’s optimized for HD and streaming it appears but it’s also in Beta so we’ll see what’s ready on August 6th.

I watched the US Women’s game today (spoiler alert) on the website and I was very impressed. The experience was smooth and has very good quality. The delayed viewing is pretty cool as well. Once the video loads, you can scroll to any point in the game and start and stop as if it was your own DVR. No commentary except for text scrolling below the screen so it’s as pure an experience as you can get after the initial 30 second advertisement.

I’m using Silverlight inside Firefox v3 which is even better in the sense that Microsoft has come up with a cross-browser solution. Something Yahoo has yet to accomplish with their Launchcast music service which has been, until recently, my proffered music streaming choice. Go download them both and enjoy!

First the good news – I’ve updated the SGFsoccer.com calendar to reflect ALL of the games that I found on the TV schedule at the NBColympics.com website. Click on the link to be taken to the soccer page where you can localize the schedule depending on your TV access – Mediacom, Dish or DirecTV. I used Dish for my scheduling effort but the schedule should be pretty accurate given the channels that are going to be used – NBC, USA, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen, Telemundo and Universal HD, as well as NBColympics.com (I’ll come back to that later). Soccer will primarily be shown on USA, MSNCB and Telemundo, beginning with the US Women vs Norway (skol!) on Wednesday August 6th (MSNBC) and ending with the Men’s final being broadcast on CNBC on Friday night August 22nd.

In addition, NBC Universal is also providing coverage of the entire men’s and women’s soccer and basketball tournaments through Soccer (58 games) and Basketball (76 games) NBC Olympics specialty channels. Only Comcast and Cox have signed on to broadcast these channels according to this site. I can’t find a thing on Mediacom’s website although I’ve contacted them via their Investor Relations site. Feel free to reach out and let them know your interest as well!

There will also be an online option. NBCOlympics.com will feature approximately 2,200 total hours of live streaming Olympic broadband video coverage, the first live online Olympic coverage in the United States. No indication of special requirements although this site notes Vista and Microsoft Silverlight. I think the only part they got right is probably the Silverlight piece. I’ve downloaded it (a cross-browser cross-platform plug-in according to Microsoft’s site) and I’ll do some testing on my Mac and PC. It’s optimized for HD and streaming it appears but it’s also in Beta so we’ll see what’s ready on August 6th.

OK, that’s probably plenty for now. Updates to come on the Men’s and Women’s teams. For now, the best be it to join us tonight and make your own decisions on the ladies! Facebook event – Join us at Coester’s for the broadcast!