To view certain track events at this summer’s Olympic Games, viewers will be forced to leap over some hurdles.
In fact, the hurdles are likely to be there for viewers across every sport as NBCUniversal, in its first Olympics under Comcast ownership, moves to require those streaming events on their computers or tablets to prove they are pay-TV customers.
That means if you are planning to watch any of NBCUniversal’s unprecedented 3,500 hours of streaming Olympic coverage or 302 medal presentations from work, make sure you bring your pay-TV bill along with your lunch.
Any cable or satellite or telecom company bill will do. Cord-cutters, for the most part, need not apply.
The “vast majority” of its exclusively streamed coverage will require authentication, NBC said.
The network hasn’t yet revealed which events cord-cutters will get to see beyond their TV screens.
While NBC instituted some authentication requirements during the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada, its live streaming coverage was limited given the network’s fears that online viewership might cannibalize its primetime TV ad revenue.
For London 2012, NBCU is going all out making available a world TV feed to viewers, although the marquee sports will still be packaged for primetime.
“The digital writing is on the wall,” Jeff Chester, executive director of the Washington, DC-based Center for Digital Democracy, told The Post.
“The eyeballs on the smaller screen are the more lucrative. [Pay TV content providers] have to train a new generation of consumers to depend on it. They’re in a losing battle, they can’t put the video genie back in the bottle.”