The 2018 Olympics are officially open, as anybody anywhere near a TV playing NBC knows, but the opening ceremonies won’t unroll until Friday morning, US time. But streaming them, let alone seeing them live? That will take a little work, depending on when you want to wake up.
There are two issues at work, here. The first is that Korea is roughly eleven to fourteen hours behind the US in time zone, depending on where you live. So the opening ceremony on their Thursday night is our Friday morning, 3 a.m. for Pacific viewers and 6 a.m. for the East Coast. The good news is that NBC is airing them live, without commentary, so if you’re willing to roll out of bed, you can stream it. This won’t show on network TV, either, only online.
If you have cable. That’s the other roadblock here, here: NBC is buttoning down access to the Olympics, and you can only stream them through NBC’s selection of apps, the NBC Olympics website, and only if you have a cable provider or over-the-top live TV streaming service like Sling, Hulu, or YouTube Red. That includes the opening ceremonies, although with over-the-top services, you should check to ensure NBC is included in your area.
The good news is that the broadcasters are provided in the bare minimum of these packages, so if you only want to commit a small amount of money to streaming the Olympics this month, you can.
If all else fails, you can wait until 8 p.m. Friday night, when the tape-delayed opening ceremonies will be aired with commentary by Katie Couric and Mike Tirico. But if you really want to watch them live, get the app set up and set your alarm now.
