The first major Olympic event was nearly empty because of the American time zone demands

Felipe Dana/AP

The figure skating venue at the Pyeongchang Olympics.

• The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, created complications when it comes to time zones.
• NBC pays billions to broadcast the games in primetime, forcing the events to take place early in the morning in South Korea.
• Already we're seeing that big events have very small crowds due to the time complications.

With the Winter Olympics taking place in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the time difference has created a bit of a complication for all parties.

On Thursday, with the games kicking off, NBC broadcast the figure skating team competition in its first primetime broadcast.

While the programming began at 8 p.m. ET on NBC, in Pyeongchang, it was actually 10am on Friday.

As Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Tribune noted, the demands of NBC to show events in primetime creates a bit of a scheduling conflict.

Others also noted the crowd size for one of the games' most popular sports.

So while Americans will get to see the biggest events at convenient times, those events might be lacking somewhat in crowd noise.