It seems as if every time I turn on the olympics, there are woman volleyball players on the screen. Dont get me wrong, they are great to look at BUT…it pretty pathetic that NBC utilizes this to get ratings.
It’s a sad but true dilema that women’s volleyball is essentially a t&a sport. Without this the sport would never have made it into the Olympics or enjoy much popularity at other venues. This takes away from the athletic accomplishments of these gals, but without the skimpy bikinis very few people would bother watching it. Now if the women Olympic wrestlers dressed the same way NBC could have some really high ratings!
I have heard this said about NBC in the past. They tend to concentrate their coverage on a few sports where:
a) The numbers are good.
b) Americans are neavy favourites.
c) Both of the above.
Every time I have flipped over to NBC from the CBC( I live in Canada), it’s been gymnastics.
I aspired to play pro beach volleyball after playing indoor in college, but eventually gave up the sport & came to triathlon for various reasons. Volleyball in the USA has long shared the same non-mainstream-sports problems as triathlon - no TV coverage, struggle for sponsorships, etc.
Funny thing is that volleyball is a huge sport, bigger than triathlon by such a large margin. In most Euro & Non-US countries, it is second to only Soccer (football.) In fact, volleyball is the most-played recreational sport in the world. Part of the reason that it’s actually getting show-time now is that they made some very material changes to the sport to make it more TV friendly, not so popular to the the traditionalists but much-needed & very successful. In particular, they eliminated the “sideout” & switched to rally scoring (a point scored in every play rather than just for the serving team.) This made matches more consistent time-wise, since previously two teams could theoretically sideout for infinity without ever scoring a point.
Triathlon is growing faster than vball despite limited TV coverage. I’d bet in a few years some more ideas will pop up (ala LifeFitness’s format) to change some things to make it more TV friendly. Maybe they can even make rules so the women have to wear smaller bikini bottoms 
“Let me recap … no, there is no time … Let me sum up …”
Did you see Misty May’s wedgie???