Why you won't see many highlights from the Rio Olympics on ESPN

Michelle McLoughlin/Reuters

The Rio Olympics officially kick off on Friday night with the games hitting full stride on Saturday. But don't expect to see many Olympic highlights during the fortnight on ESPN, the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports.

Of course, the big issue is that, in the United States, NBC owns the broadcast rights to the Summer Olympics. But even beyond that, NBC has in place some strict guidelines for the volume of highlights ESPN can air, and it amounts to very little.

Here are the rules for ESPN: 

• ESPN, including their flagship highlight show "SportsCenter," cannot air any highlights from the Rio Olympics until after NBC's broadcast on the west coast ends. That would be roughly 3:00 am on the east coast. That means ESPN won't be able to air any highlights on the day they happen.
• After the conclusion of NBC's west coast broadcast, any ESPN news program may use up to 6 minutes of highlights.
• ESPN cannot use any highlight that has been available for more than 72 hours.
• Footage of any news conference, even if filmed by ESPN, cannot be used until 30 minutes after the press conference ends.

The idea of using six minutes of highlights in a 60-minute episode of "SportsCenter" doesn't sound too bad. But then you realize if they show just two of the eight laps in Katie Ledecky's 800-meter race, they have already used up one-third (2 minutes) of their highlight allotment.

In other words, if you want a lot of Olympic highlights, it is time you finally figure out where NBC Sports Network is on your cable guide.

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