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A tough pill to swallow for big fans, but as Barbend reports, the reason why makes a lot of sense: the competition occurs over four full days. That leaves a ton of dead airtime between the various events, some of which probably need a fair amount of setup. More importantly, there also needs to be time to edit everything into a digestible TV piece.
The coverage of the competition will debut on June 30 on CBS, exactly two weeks after the competition's final event. The episode is expected to be an hour long.
The two week lull does seem like a long wait time to see the broadcast of an athletic competition on TV (especially when we're used to live NBA, MLB, and NFL games, for instance)-but this is also the fastest that the competition has ever made it to the small screen.
Last year's competition ended on May 6, and didn't air until until June 10. Previously, the competition would only air during the Christmas season, and competitors wouldn't be allowed to reveal the winner in the six months between the contest's conclusion and television airing.
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View this post on Instagram A couple of strong mother fuckers. @vado.a A post shared by Hafr Jlus Bjrnsson (@thorbjornsson) on May 2, 2019 at 9:24am PDT
It's unknown how many episodes will air this year, but last year's competition aired as 10 half-hour episodes, and an hour long finale. The 'series' lasted about three and a half or four months. If the standard episode is an hour this year rather than a half hour, you can expect to cut that broadcast period in half.