USA baseball failed, yes failed, to qualify for the Olympics in baseball by losing to Mexico in the quarterfinals of the qualifying tournament. I know most of the soccer (men and women) will be on Telemundo. Do you think this clears the schedule at NBC at all for the some of the US soccer games to be televised English language (I speak Spanish but don't get Telemundo/Univision via cable etc... in my culturally homogenous corner of New Hampshire)? Won't more people watch US Olympic soccer than Mexico-Italy baseball? Will NBC change anything (I doubt it, but I'm wondering...)???
NO Baseball, Boxing, and Men's Futbol were ticketed for Telemundo anyway (with VERY limited coverage of the US teams on MSNBC and CNBC). With US baseball not qualifying for Athens, a few slots will open up on MSNBC and CNBC, likely for more women's team sports. Coverage on MSNBC, just like in 2000, will be built around women's team sports: basketball, softball, soccer, and volleyball. The big change will be boxing, which aired on CNBC at 5-7pm ET/PT in 2000. Boxing is a much better fit for Telemundo at 11:30pm-1:30am ET/PT in 2004. Telemundo will still have plenty of Beisbol with La Seleccion de Cuba being the main attraction.
With the homercentric coverage NBC gives the Olympics, the loss of any potential medal team (US baseball indeed fits this bill), there will be opportunities for more coverage of US success stories. Here's hoping the US Olympic soccer teams do very well and can get some more primary network mention and/or coverage. I just don't see NBC mentioning soccer teams that finish out of the medals. And GE has CNBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo to cover soccer, so it will take a great story to get US soccer beyond the cable and Spanish-language networks. But as it is, Olympic telecasts are planned months, if not years, in advance, so I would follow what da_cfo is saying.
The ONLY team sport NBC carries during the Summer games is USA Basketball. Nothing else would draw enough interest to warrant coverage. You will see every USA Women's soccer game on basic cable as they are also perceived as a "dream-team." Men's soccer is nothing more than a U-23 championship AND it doesn't fall on FIFA match-dates (it almost never does), meaning only MLS players and reserves in Europe will be called up. Note also that few if any European countries play in the Olympics if it is not in their country- it's almost always African and North/South America nations that play, plus maybe one or two from Asia. Hence, men's soccer really belongs only on Telemundo and the coverage will be focused on Mexico (should they compete), Brazil's "youth team", USA, and other Latin American nations.
Let's keep in mind we haven't qualified our soccer teams yet. The men face a difficult task in Mexico in February. Even the women face some interesting scenarios in Costa Rica soon after.
Baseball's 2.5% tolerance for steroids/doping is in conflict with the international community's zero tolerance. I think soccer could capitalize on that by emphasizing that MLS is in conformity with international regulations on steroids and doping. Unfortunately for soccer, the baseball dominated media cares more about home runs and 99 mph fastballs than they do about cheating.