It is no secret by this point that the preparations in Rio have been a hard slog. Competition ramps up on Saturday, but first the city will get its chance to have a night of bliss with the 2016 Olympic Games' opening ceremony at Rio's Maracanã Stadium. NBC will provide an online live stream beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET/6:30 p.m. CT. Details can be found at the bottom of this story.
NBC will broadcast the ceremony on a one-hour tape delay to the Eastern and Central time zones, with the network aiming to provide context to the events on the ground in Rio. The ceremony will be shown at 8 p.m., 60 minutes after it gets going in Brazil. Rio is an hour ahead of the East Coast – something that'll feel minimal after the most recent games worked off time differences of seven hours (Sochi) and five hours (London) from the eastern United States.
Viewers in Mountain Time can watch the ceremony at 6:30 p.m. MT, and West Coast fans can watch at 7:30 p.m. PT.
Infrastructural problems have popped up one after another. Terrorist plots have been foiled. Brazilian politics have been in total turmoil, highlighted by the impeachment trial and removal from office of president Dilma Rousseff in May. It hasn't been an easy time for one of the world's really interesting cities.
But the Olympic flame will make its way into the stadium, and it'll be a night of pageantry and (hopefully) few flaws in front of a global audience and many of the world's finest athletes.
Many of the biggest names in sports will be in attendance. The Olympics are a good time for little-known athletes to make international names for themselves, and maybe the biggest candidate for an American breakthrough star this year is Simone Biles, the star of the U.S. women's gymnastics team.
Here's full viewing information for Friday night's festivities, whether you're aiming to watch them on your TV, computer, tablet or phone. All times are Eastern:
2016 Rio Olympics opening ceremony coverage
Date: Friday, Aug. 5
Time: 7:30 p.m. ET
TV: NBC
Streaming:
Easter/Central time zones: Use this link at 7:30 p.m. ET
Mountain time zone: Use this link at 6:30 p.m. MT
Pacific time zone: Use this link at 7:30 p.m. PT
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