The Long Tail Olympics

Chris Anderson points to a new project by Microsoft and NBC Universal that will allow Olympic 2008 fans to watch the sport they want, when they want it. It’s being dubbed as a Longtail Olympics. The press release says:

NBC Universal and Microsoft will raise the bar for live and on-demand Internet broadcasting through an exclusive agreement where Microsoft and NBC will deliver NBCOlympics.com on MSN, the official U.S. online home of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In the first “long-tail” Olympics, online viewers will have access to more than 3,000 hours of live and on-demand content so they can watch their favorite athlete or sport, regardless of whether the sport has seven fans or 7 million. NBCOlympics.com on MSN will be available free and powered by Microsoft Silverlight technology, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering high-quality video experiences on the Web.

NBC Universal hasn’t got a great track record of making content available for all or DRM-free, but let’s see how this pans out, shall we?