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NEW YORK -- A former journalist turned college professor, Kelly Whiteside is watching NBCs prime-time Olympics coverage this month for the first time in 16 years. Shes surprised at what shes found -- not because the programs have changed so much, but because they havent.Its almost like a time capsule for me, said Whiteside, who covered several Olympics for USA Today.Much of what NBC does at other times is markedly different from what she remembers; the Olympics are spread around nearly a dozen different cable networks and every competition is streamed live online. Yet NBCs prime-time, the Olympics point of entry for the vast majority of viewers, has remained an island unto itself by sticking to a time-honored formula.Prime-time ratings are down this year from the record-setting London Games, and NBC says a big reason is because more people are watching cable or their devices. But its worth posing the question: Is the formula growing stale?NBCs prime-time focuses on a handful of sports -- swimming & diving, track & field, gymnastics, beach volleyball -- to the virtual exclusion of all others. Its a mix of live and plausibly live, or tape-delayed coverage that allows action to unfold as it happens. A narrative style humanizes otherwise unknown athletes, letting viewers page through a picture book that swimmer Ryan Murphy drew as a child or watch gymnast Aly Raismans parents squirm in the stands.A majority of viewers are women; 55 percent through Rios first six nights. NBC assumes many arent sports fans and, in an attention-getting comment last month, NBC chief marketing officer John Miller said that women are less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. Its sort of like the ultimate reality show and miniseries wrapped into one.That struck some fans as patronizing and reflective of a poor understanding of the audience in an era when women also make up the majority of the U.S. Olympic team.Weve all grown up playing sports, said Joanne Gerstner, who teaches sports journalism at Michigan State. We have kids that are playing sports. Who are these groups of women they feel are so alien to sports that they have to be catered to in this way? I dont know who these people are.Whiteside, who teaches at Montclair State University in New Jersey, said she appreciates knowing about the athletes competing. But, she said, I dont view the Olympics as reality TV. I view it as a great sporting event.Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins wrote that a network would never think of cutting and pasting highlights of a football game around childhood film of Peyton and Eli Manning on a swing set. With its heavy packaging, NBC is living in the past, she wrote.NBC points to its live streams as evidence that people can watch events like the gymnastics finals live if they want. Showing the most popular sports at a time most viewers are available is a service both to the fans and those who bought more than $1.2 billion in advertising.The way we create our storytelling and our narrative, mixed in with incredibly compelling competition, I think is working for men, women and children, NBC Sports Group Chairman Mark Lazarus said this week. And thats our goal. This is a very big tent and all are welcome. We program, we schedule, and we try to create a show around the competition thats welcoming to all. And I think so far were finding success.NBCs Olympics operation is a deeply experienced and talented team. Gary Zenkel, in his 11th Olympics, runs the business operations. Jim Bell, former Today show producer, is the top producer. His first NBC job out of college was working at the Barcelona Olympics. Both count former NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol as a mentor; Ebersol himself was a protege of ABCs Roone Arledge and the up-close-and-personal Olympics coverage of generations ago.Three of the 27 executives profiled on the NBC Olympics press website are women.The teams experience, and the rarity of any TV programs reaching such a huge audience in todays fragmented world, makes it unlikely NBC will blow up the formula for prime-time to try something completely new.Given the rapid change in the way people watch TV in an on-demand world -- and a 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, where there will likely be less live competition to show on prime-time in the United States -- NBC may have to consider changes more quickly than it expects, said Andy Billings, a University of Alabama sports media professor and author of Olympic Media: Inside the Biggest Show on Television.And what would that new formula be? Thats the tough question.One idea would be a combination of live events with SportsCenter-like highlights and interviews, taking in a far greater range of Olympic sports. I think the audience would be even greater, Whiteside said.---Follow David Bauder at twitter.com/dbauder. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/david-bauder Adidas Superstar Australia Cheap . Goals from Jerome Boateng, Franck Ribery and Thomas Mueller extended Bayerns unbeaten run to a record 37 matches. "This record is incredible," Bayern coach Pep Guardiola said. Adidas Superstar Australia . Ashley Youngs cross was inadvertently headed by Chester into his own net in the 66th minute, allowing United to claim a third straight league win. "We had to dig deep with our fighting spirit and weve done that," United striker Wayne Rooney said. http://www.wholesalesuperstaraustralia.com/ . Marincin has played in two NHL games so far this season with two penalty minutes. The 21-year-old has three goals, four assists and a plus-5 rating in 24 games with the American Hockey Leagues Oklahoma City Barons this season. Adidas Superstar Shoes Australia . While hell be dialed in to that tournament on a course he loves, you can forgive him if his eyes glance down the calendar just a bit, towards April. Cheap Adidas Superstar . -- For the first time in two months, an opponent was standing up to Alabama. NEW YORK -- In a sign of just how much American soccer has grown up, U.S. national team coach Jurgen Klinsmann was fired after a pair of losses in the final round World Cup qualifying.Six days after a 4-0 loss at Costa Rica dropped the Americans to 0-2, Klinsmann was terminated after nearly 5 1/2 years during a meeting Monday at a Los Angeles hotel with U.S. Soccer Federation President Sunil Gulati and Secretary General Dan Flynn.Los Angeles Galaxy coach Bruce Arena is the favorite to succeed Klinsmann, and his hiring could be announced as early as Tuesday. Arena coached the national team from 1998 to 2006.Gone are the days when U.S. coaches were immune to the win-now mentality that permeates soccer. Qualifying resumes when the U.S. hosts Honduras on March 24 and plays four days later at Panama, and the USSF is expecting a quick turnaround.While we remain confident that we have quality players to help us advance to Russia 2018, the form and growth of the team up to this point left us convinced that we need to go in a different direction, Gulati said in a statement. With the next qualifying match in late March, we have several months to refocus the group and determine the best way forward to ensure a successful journey to qualify for our eighth consecutive World Cup.A former star forward for Germany who has lived mostly in Orange County with his American wife since his retirement as a player in 1998, Klinsmann replaced Bob Bradley in July 2011. He led the team to the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup title and the second round of the 2014 World Cup, where the Americans lost to Belgium in extra time.The USSF announced in December 2013 a four-year contract extension through 2018, but the successful World Cup was followed by poor performances. The U.S. was knocked out by Jamaica in last years Gold Cup semifinals and lost to Mexico in a playoff for a Confederations Cup berth. The team rebounded to reach this years Copa America semifinals before losing to Argentina 4-0.But this month Mexico beat the Americans 2-1 at Columbus, Ohio, in the first home qualifying loss for the U.S. since 2001.And last week in Costa Rica, the Americans were stunned by their largest margin of defeat in qualifying since 1980. They dropped to 0-2 for the first time in the hexagonal, as the final round of qualifying in North and Central America and the Caribbean is known.While there is time to recover, given the top three teams qualify for the 2018 tournament in Russia and the fourth-place finisher advances to a playoff against Asias No. 5 team, players seemed confused by Klinsmanns tactics, such as a 3-4-1-2 formation used att the start against the Mexicans.ddddddddddddToday we made the difficult decision of parting ways with Jurgen Klinsmann, Gulati said. There were considerable achievements along the way ... but there were also lesser publicized efforts behind the scenes. He challenged everyone in the U.S. Soccer community to think about things in new ways, and thanks to his efforts we have grown as an organization and expect there will be benefits from his work for years to come.Gulati planned a Tuesday telephone news conference to discuss the switch. The U.S. had not changed coaches in the middle of qualifying since the USSF made the position a full-time job and hired Bob Gansler in 1989 to replace Lothar Osiander, who also at the time was a waiter at a San Francisco restaurant.Klinsmann made controversial decisions, such as dropping Landon Donovan from the 2014 World Cup roster while taking along relatively inexperienced players such as John Brooks, Julian Green and DeAndre Yedlin. Brooks and Green were among five German-Americans on the 23-man U.S. World Cup roster, which drew criticism from some in the American soccer community.He went 55-27-16, including a U.S.-record 12-game winning streak and victories in exhibitions at Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. He has worked in the past year to integrate more young players into the lineup, such as teen midfield sensation Christian Pulisic, Bobby Wood and Jordan Morris.Arena, a 65-year-old wisecracking Brooklynite known for blunt talk and sarcasm, was inducted into the U.S. National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2010. He coached the University of Virginia from 1978-95, then coached D.C. United to titles in Major League Soccers first two seasons before losing in the 1998 final. As U.S. coach, he led the Americans to the 2002 World Cup quarterfinals in the teams best finish since 1930.He was let go after the teams first-round elimination in 2006. Gulati unsuccessfully courted Klinsmann, who won the 1990 World Cup with West Germany and the 1996 European Championship with Germany, then coached his nation to the 2006 World Cup semifinals.When Gulati and Klinsmann couldnt reach an agreement, the USSF hired Bradley, who coached the team to the second round of the 2010 World Cup. A year later, the Americans stumbled in the Gold Cup, and Klinsmann replaced Bradley.Arena coached the New York Red Bulls of MLS from July 2006 to November 2007, then was hired the following August by the Galaxy. He led the team to MLS titles in 2011, `12 and `14. ' ' '