It's easy to jump the shark when you're always in the water!

Michael Phelps, Olympic swimmer turned American hero turned language software spokesman, has at long last been asked to consider the career equivalent of outstaying one's welcome as a house guest: reality television. According to Life & Style magazine, Phelps was approached by Ashton Kutcher, owner of the Katalyst Films production company, about the project, which would presumably follow the swimmer as he eats, adjusts to fame, eats and signs autographs.

Phelps has yet to agree to anything, so for now you'll have to keep getting your laughs at the expense of a goofy, disproportionate guy from your kid brother.

Like many publicly traded companies last week, General Electric released its quarterly report and showed a dip in profit ($4.31b this quarter, compared to last year's $5.56b), which was expected. But Friday's paperwork also revealed one startling discovery: The Beijing Olympics, which GE's NBC unit paid nearly $900 million for, and racked up more than $1 billion in revenue? Despite all the cheering about the additional ad dollars squeezed out of every 30-second block, the 2008 Games actually produced a loss for NBC. Or, uh, did it?

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At this year's Olympic Games, an important thing happened to the gay community: One of its own won a gold medal. But Australian diver Matthew Mitcham, the only out gay male athlete in Beijing, didn't just win gold in men’s platform diving — he also snagged the highest score ever received by a male Olympic diver, and kept the Chinese from sweeping the event.

But if you were watching any of NBC's coverage of the event — like gymnastics, track, and swimming, diving is a huge ratings draw for broadcasters — you wouldn't have heard a single thing about Mitcham's remarkable win. Yes, the commentariat mentioned his score, his home country, and his age. But they didn't mention that other seminal trait: That Mitcham was gay, and out — even when his boyfriend was there in the stands, cheering him on.

For a sporting event that's more obsessed with telling athletes' personal stories than even the NFL, many saw NBC's ignoring Mitcham's sexuality as more than a forgetful omission, but as an intentional move to keep sexual politics out of their coverage, even though the network had no trouble, say, covering the loved ones of hetero athletes.

Now NBC's Olympics frontman Bob Costas is answering calls for an explanation. And doing a pretty sorry job.

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Speedo. Visa. Kellogg's. PowerBar. Omega. Argent Mortgage. Matsunichi Communication Holdings. And, unofficially, NBC. Michael Phelps has endorsement deals coming out the wazzz, and now there's a mini-competition among all of his sponsors to exploit him to the fullest. Phelps is pulling in somewhere in the low eight figures from all his sponsorship arrangements — some estimate he could be worth $50 million to Nike — thanks to Speedo plastering its logo near his junk, Kellogg's putting him on the front of Frosted Flakes, and Visa spitting out spots faster than Americans are sinking into credit card debt. But most of the spots are quite terrible. This one, for flexible private jet ownership firm Citation Shares, falls somewhere on that scale between "clever and on target" and "predictable and gauche." Just look to the sweatshirt Phelps is wearing to find out which category we ended up putting him in.

In the far off year of 2014, the Olympics might leave their home at NBC and arrive at ESPN. But for the next four years, through 2012, Jeff Zucker's network has the exclusive broadcast rights. And the possibility of them changing hands is a big maybe — IOC officials are beyond pleased with the ratings records NBC Universal's slate of networks captured, which means you can expect their fees to increase from 2008's $894 million.

Will EPSN have the cash? Perhaps. Parent Disney has the bucks to have a seat at the table, and the media giant has its own roster of channels, including ABC, ABC Family, SoapNet, The Disney Channel, and ESPN's endless spin-offs, to rack up new programming hour records.

But none of that really explains why ESPN decided to run this ad in the New York Times and USA Today. Though it doesn't mention NBC, it certainly congratulates the competition on a job well done, turning Michael Phelps' swim meets into a national obsession.

So here's to self deprecation. And the mystery behind it.

World's Greatest Athlete and upcoming television star Michael Phelps isn't the only one capitalizing on his Olympic fame. And thank god for that! For instance, while Phelps shuns Wheaties, the cereal maker selected gold medal-winning gymnastics champ Nastia Liukin to slap on its box. And Liukin — whose name, unfortunately, could be confused with "nasty looking," though she certainly is not — isn't stopping there.

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NBC is a jealous mistress. Among rumors that Michael Phelps is bedding Stephanie Rice (and whoever else he wants) the peacock station wants to draw their beloved cash-cow back into the warm bosom of their network.

Fair enough, but couldn't they find a better program than Saturday Night Live to showcase Phelps? The Olympic swimmer will be hosting the first episode of the season, which is sure to get off to a bang considering that America has never even heard Phelps speak. There is always a noticeable downturn in the quality of the comedy whenever the guest-host is a famous athlete:

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With a starting price of $1 million, Michael Phelps' agent Peter Carlisle shopped around his book and found a believer in Simon & Schuster's Free Press. The final price? $1.6 million. [NYP]

'Nike and Adidas carpet-bombed the games with endorser-athletes and high-profile sponsorship deals, but smaller competitors such as Speedo and Puma achieved greater surges in awareness and buzz by backing a smaller group of athletes who just happened to dominate the games and much of the conversation surrounding them.' [AdAge]

On NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol's list of musts heading into the 2008 Beijing Olympics: 1) Get China to move its Olympics bid date four weeks up so it wouldn't compete with fall sports, TV premieres, and children having to be in school; 2) Get Michael Phelps and other star athletes on board with competing in primetime; and 3) Get Phelps to shill for NBC's entire Olympics marketing strategy, which he did, supposedly, for $0. Congrats, Ebersol, you went 3-for-3. [NYT]

As Michael Phelps continued to win one gold medal after another before breaking the world record and taking home eight, Speedo and Visa were by his side capitalizing on all the free publicity for its brand. Even Nike turned the injury of China's hurdler Liu Xiang into a marketing opportunity by releasing an ad affirming the company would stand by its endorser. So what did Puma — a sportswear brand focused on speed and style — do when Jamaica's Usain Bolt became the fastest man alive? Absolutely nothing.

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Swimmer girlfriend stealer Michael Phelps inked a book deal with Simon & Schuster's Free Press to write about his Olympics experience. It will have eight chapters.

Hungry? Why wait? Especially since the food being offered at the Olympic venues apparently sucked so bad that Snickers became the number two chocolate bar in China this quarter, either for lack of better options, the fact that Chinese officials kept visitors away from the Olympic Green, or following a deal chocolate maker Mars signed to make the deliciously nutty snack the official chocolate of the Beijing Games.

Snickers, known over there as "Shilijia," has been around in China for the last fifteen years, but it took the giant marketing tie-in of the games for the Chinese to come around on the junk-food. Or rather, it took the build up to the giant marketing tie-in to get the Chinese on the road toward the ambitious goal of obesity.

The game plan for introducing the East to a snack that costs about half of what the average Chinese teen spends a day? Only a little gimmick that definitely wouldn't fly in the U.S.

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One television watcher is surprised that, after paying nearly $900 million for domestic broadcast rights for the Olympics, NBC wants to talk about the games endlessly, even on its news program. [WaPo]

Bad information often gets a reporter into trouble. WMDs and Judy Miller, anyone? But for Bob Costas, a bad tip didn't get him into trouble — it got colleague Brian Williams into an embarrassing lie. You see, Costas had heard that Bruce Springsteen had, during a live concert, congratulated World's Best Athlete Michael Phelps (who Amanda Beard totally didn't make out with) for snagging his seventh gold medal and then dedicated "Born in the USA" to him. Costas wanted to ask Phelps what he thought about The Boss' personal dedicated, but his interview ran long, so he passed the tip to Williams, who brought it up in his own interview with Phelps. Except Springsteen never congratulated Phelps during the concert, nor did he dedicate a song to him.

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America got slaughtered last night by China in the Olympic baseball games, which does exist.

Not "slaughtered" like China kicked the United States' butt (they didn't, America won 9-1….GO U.S.A.!). Slaughtered like "did that batter just get hit by a Chinese pitcher again?" Yes, yes he did, but only because he was involved in taking out the Chinese catcher.

As soon as Michael Phelps wraps up his tour de gold, the entire games turns into one big jock show of seeing who's dick is bigger. Which is funny, because it was Phelps who was wearing the Speedos.

Watch video of the traumas below (which included a batter, Matt LaPorta, given a concussion, for eff's sake):

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The Today show gang continues their tour of embarrassing stunts as they work their way through the rest of the Olympics. This morning, Al Roker and Matt Lauer treated viewers to their rhythmic gymnastics routine. This goes over well with the working and stay-at-home moms who make up a huge portion of their viewership, but not for cynical media watchers like ourselves.

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Now that President King Dictator Michael Phelps has won the Olympics — literraly, the whole shebang is his — what's next? Doubtful that a guy could win eight gold medals in Beijing and then go back to Maryland with his dog to swim laps in the Potomac, although that looks as if it's Mikey's game-plan. Luckily, the money from Phelp's endorsements might last him long enough to buy a place in a nicer neighborhood than Baltimore; Speedo is writing him a cheque for $1 million as part of its promise for him winning eight gold medals, and that's on top of their existing endorsement deal, his sponorship gigs for Visa, Hilton, and Kellogg's (among others).

It leaves little doubt Phelps will add "richest Olympian" to his roster of personal records. But he's going to accomplish a more incredible feat: remaining relevant after the closing ceremonies. Indeed, where other celebrity Olympians disappeared into oblivion after their medal ceremonies, we see Phelps reaching the success of pro athletes who compete in leagues identified by three-letter acronyms.

Here's how:

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Speaking of all those NBC execs who left NYC for Beijing, the network's co-chairman Ben Silverman is over there, and working! But not for NBC.

He's filing reports for Ryan Seacrest's KIIS FM radio show, and breaks news like "The Great Wall is an understatement. It's the 'Awesome Wall!'"; says borderline-offensive things about his Chinese guide like "Her name is Fun Fun, so you can imagine how much fun-fun Fun Fun is"; and, in revealing that been referring to the main Olympic stadium, the Bird's Nest, as the "Bird Cage," has shown he's living up to his likes to party reputation. [B&C]

Emotional advertisements are proving to be the most memorable during the Olympics, because viewers were already primed to get all teary-eyed thanks to NBC's endless "Michael Phelps is an American hero" storyline.

Coca-Cola found great success with its animated "Bird's Nest" ad, which showed birds creating a nest out of drinking straws; Oreo scored points with two girls (one American, one Chinese) eating cookies on different trains as they passed by each other; and General Electric, which owns NBC, got propped up by its ad featuring a dragon that heats a village pool with its fire-breathing snout, reminding viewers that we're entirely dependent on fantasy to wean us off oil.