Because I do not engage in name-calling, I will not describe these people you hear whining about Olympic broadcast delays as a bunch of spoiled brats in need of a nap and a reality check, but rather “real-time women’s beach volleyball activists.”

They are complaining that they already know the outcome of such events before the network gets around to showing them, and are therefore robbed of their inalienable privilege as Americans to watch any sports broadcast they desire for free at the time most convenient to them and, for heaven’s sake, without commercial interruption as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

These people walk among us and seem perfectly normal until they find out, for example, that the Boise State game is being replaced on cable by UNC-Duke basketball and they go off like an explosion in a boiler factory.

In the case of the summer games, it does no good to point out that NBC executives paid a billion dollars for the Olympic rights and might have had in the back of their minds the insane notion of breaking even. This does not compute with many people whose entitlement to instant media surpasses all understanding.

They are data snobs and, as such, are constantly filtering the blast of electrons coming at them in fire-hose bursts and longing for more.

As they cross the street against traffic with their attention focused on wee little screens at midday, they are learning things that won’t happen until prime time on the TV screen and it is an outrage, a bloody affront to their very existence, a crime against their dignity.

Is it really possible that these people could take time from their workdays to watch, if provided, petite women swizzling those little streamers around, which is an actual Olympic sport that pays off in bronze, silver and gold? Should whole industries go idle while the nimble beach volleyballists practice their amazing feats for the amusement of the screen addicts? Shouldn’t the games be scheduled on Eastern time, no matter where in the world they are played?

No, I say. Package it up like a grand buffet and serve it when the masses are there to consume it.

Olympics are about human sacrifice and achievement. Athletes delay the gratifications of life that the rest of us take for granted, often for years at a time, to ready themselves for the day of competition.

You, too, can get in the spirit. All those devices that chirp with spoilers have an “off” switch. See if you can activate it.

Epic whining is not yet an Olympic sport. But inexplicably, there are plenty of people in training.