U.S. sprinter Tyson Gay will make his Olympic debut this weekend in the highly anticipated 100 meters in Beijing. An injury suffered July 5 at the U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore., prohibited Gay from qualifying for the 200 meters, but his agent, Global Athletics’ Mark Wetmore, said missing out on the 200 will not affect the sprinter's sponsorships.     Read More  >

Gold
Ad buyers
If anyone's looking good these days, it's the ad buyers who bought time during the Olympics. Ratings are exceeding expectations, garnering a 17.6 national average after the first six nights, and NBC is winning every night in prime time.

Silver
Speedo's LZR Racer
A lot has been written about the success of Speedo's new swimsuit, but they continue to shine every night in Beijing. The better news is that there's been little talk about swimsuits as "technological" doping, or about the Tyr lawsuits. All of that's keeping the focus on the swimmers in the pool.

Bronze
BOCOG EVP Wang Wei
Throughout the run-up to the Olympics, the torch relay protests and the questions about air quality, BOCOG Executive Vice President Wang Wei has kept his cool. But yesterday he began to crack, criticizing international media for coming to China to find something wrong. While he may have a point, he's not helping himself and things could get ugly fast if he remains combative.

Tin
Ticket sales
Beach volleyball was half-full yesterday. Wrestling was largely empty for the evening session. And table tennis, a favorite in China, had only a third of the stands full last night. What happened to the first "sold-out" Olympics? Many international Olympic fans stayed home this summer because there were no tickets available. Now they're looking at the TV in disappointment. Was all of the boasting about a "sold-out" Games just spin?

A week into the Olympics, and it’s safe to say that everything in NBC’s world is right.

Ratings are soaring, online traffic is exploding and Michael Phelps is winning.

Fresh off a marathon broadcasting session that ended at 1:40 a.m. in the U.S., NBC Olympics executive producer David Neal sat down to talk about how things are going in Beijing.    Read More  >

The combination today of blue skies, the opening of the “Bird’s Nest” for track and field, and coupons providing access to the Olympic Green triggered one of the busiest days the area has seen to date.

Sponsors, some of whom had complained about light foot traffic at the massive pavilions showcasing their brands, saw a significant increase in visitors. They credited the factors above, as well as the word-of-mouth buzz generated by their pavilions over the course of the week.    Read More  >

As the first week of the Beijing Olympics concluded Friday, many seats remained empty in many venues, and it doesn’t appear to be the Athens problem of unused corporate-sponsor seats.

Many non-premium, nosebleed-type seats are going empty. That’s not unusual at Games, except that BOCOG announced in July that tickets to all Olympic events in Beijing were completely sold out.    Read More  >

NBC earned a 16.7/28 national rating and averaged 27.7 million viewers for Wednesday night's prime-time coverage, marking the network's second-lowest-rated night during the Beijing Games thus far.

Through Wednesday night, NBC is averaging a 17.6/30 national rating for six prime-time Olympic telecasts, up 12.1 percent from a 15.7/27 (26.2 million viewers) for the same period at the 2004 Athens Games. This marks the best prime-time rating through the first six nights of a non-U.S. Summer Olympics since an 18.3/34 for the 1992 Barcelona Games.

Meanwhile, the TAMi for Tuesday night’s coverage totaled 105 million across the four Olympic platforms.

With every record that falls in the pool, Speedo seems to benefit.

Over the course of the last week, the swimsuit manufacturer has seen record traffic on its Web site, and it has sold out jersey T-shirts it makes with Michael Phelps’ name on the back. The company is scrambling to get more jerseys made as Phelps prepares to go after his seventh gold medal.    Read More  >

I have been impressed with NBC’s Olympic basketball coverage thus far, as the United States looks to regain gold-medal form after the utter disappointment of a bronze four years ago in Athens. But what really has impressed me most is that NBC has been able to score the NBA’s broadcasting version of the “Dream Team.”    Read More  >

Today we continue our discussion with Lisa Delpy Neirotti, associate professor of tourism & sports management at George Washington University. Delpy Neirotti, who arrived in Beijing on Aug. 4, has been to 13 Olympic Games. This time around, she’s leading a group of 28 students to China from Aug. 4-24. She gave us her continuing experience of Beijing via e-mail yesterday.    Read More  >