Article · Olympics
Olympic spoilers: when the network spoils its own race
NBC once aired a promo that showed a gold-medal swim before it aired the race. A breaking-news feed posted a Phelps result hours before the broadcast. In 2024, TV recordings showed results in their thumbnails. Why the Olympics are so easy to spoil.
By the HideScore team · Updated · 3 min read
The Olympics happen in one time zone. Fans watch them in every time zone. That gap makes the Games the easiest event in sport to spoil.
Often the spoiler does not come from a stranger online. It comes from the network or the app that carries the Games.
2012: a promo that showed the swim
At the London Games, NBC held many big events for its primetime broadcast in the United States. On July 30, 2012, before it aired Missy Franklin's backstroke final, NBC ran a promo for the next morning's Today show. The promo showed her gold-medal swim. Viewers who had waited all day for the race saw the result in an ad for a different program. NBC said the next day: "Clearly that promo should not have aired at that time. We have a process in place and this will not happen again."
2008: the result reached Twitter first
Four years earlier, at the Beijing Games, a Twitter account that relayed CNN's breaking-news alerts posted the result of a Michael Phelps race hours before it aired in the United States. TechCrunch reported the complaints, and later added that the account was not official, but it passed on CNN's own breaking-news emails. Fans who followed it for news got the result before the race.
2024: the thumbnails gave it away
At Paris 2024, the problem moved into the TV app. TechIssuesToday reported that YouTube TV's on-demand Olympics videos were "riddled with spoiler-filled titles and thumbnails," mixed in with the recordings that fans had set up to watch later. YouTube TV support said it was working on a fix. A recording that you planned to watch on delay is only useful if the screen around it does not tell you the result. See the settings that cut spoilers in TV apps and on social media.
What HideScore does
HideScore shows spoiler-free sports highlights. Free, no account, no ads, no gambling. The board lists games with no score and no winner, and the title and thumbnail of each clip stay covered until you press play. The rule is the same in every sport: nothing on the screen tells you what happened before you choose to see it.
Open HideScore. No score is printed on the board.
Open HideScoreSources
- NBC Sports apologizes for Missy Franklin Olympics spoiler · TheWrap, July 31, 2012
- NBC spoils Missy Franklin's gold medal race just before it aired · HuffPost, July 31, 2012
- CNN doesn't include spoiler alert in tweets, Twitter users say it ruined Olympics · TechCrunch, August 16, 2008
- YouTube TV VOD Olympics spoilers issue being looked into · TechIssuesToday, August 2, 2024
Frequently asked questions
What was NBC's Missy Franklin spoiler?
On July 30, 2012, NBC aired a promo for the next morning's Today show that showed Missy Franklin's gold-medal swim. NBC had not yet aired the race, which it held for its primetime broadcast. NBC said: "Clearly that promo should not have aired at that time. We have a process in place and this will not happen again."
Why are the Olympics so easy to spoil?
The Games run in one time zone and are watched in all of them. Many events end hours before a viewer far away sees them, and news, alerts, promos and video thumbnails move faster than the broadcast.
How can I watch Olympic highlights without spoilers?
Mute the event and athlete names on your social apps, turn off news alerts, and open highlights from a list that prints no result. HideScore covers the video title and thumbnail of every clip it opens.