NBC and Comcast and Socci Olys

What do you make of this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/sports/29olympics.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha27

Apparently, the Sports Divisions of CBS, ABC, ESPN are all interested in dealing with this.

If Comcast does takeover NBC which is likely, will they continue with the Figure Skating competions as NBC has done?

If it continues to show the Olympics, I just hope NBC does a better job in Sochi than it did this year.

I don't think NBC will bid aggressively for the Olympics whether they change ownership or not. They lost hundreds of millions of dollars (they admit to $200,000,000) on the Vancouver games, and the delayed coverage from Sochi will be less interesting to U.S. audiences than live coverage from Canada.

NBC pointedly did not offer to extend their current deal past the London games.

Interesting point about how much money U.S. interests lost (in projection) when Chicago lost the bid for the summer games. That was pure politics. The IOC was mad at the USOC because the USOC embarked on a plan to use the Olympic logo to make money on their own in the U.S. without giving the USOC a cut. So the IOC rigged the vote to force Chicago out in the first round and the Chicago bid never got to go head to head with Rio.

As I recall, during the Vancouver games the Olympics were soundly clobbered in the ratings by shows like American Idol and Three and a half Men.

I thought this was interesting:

“I don’t think Comcast wants its first move with its new partner to be a negative one and to lose something NBC has had for years,” said Barry Frank, an executive vice president of IMG who has negotiated Olympic deals in the past.

Click to expand...

First, Mr. Frank is whistling in the dark. Second, what does an executive of IMG (a private agency that promotes the careers of professional athletes and entertainers) have to do with negotiations between television networks and the International Olympic Committee?

I really think if Comcast takes over NBC, it will carry on NBC wishes for 2011, 2012, but if sports are not getting up in the ratings, Comcast will look elsewhere to get ratings. How much do "solo sports" do in the ratings? It's a wait and see. We haven't mentioned the Universal Sport channel which does specialize in "solo sports". Will they continue without the backing of NBC?

Personally, I do not mind watching Icenetwork, but they should improve their audio.

Joesitz said:

What do you make of this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/sports/29olympics.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha27

Apparently, the Sports Divisions of CBS, ABC, ESPN are all interested in dealing with this.

If Comcast does takeover NBC which is likely, will they continue with the Figure Skating competions as NBC has done?

Click to expand...

Comcast sports has always aired "girlie" sports like gymnastics and skating on their sports channel. They had Nancy Kerrigan hosting a number of the skating shows. So someone in Comcast sports likes skating pretty well. I would expect that we would continue to see some skating on US Sports.

Good question. I'm not exactly sure what might happen, but as far as skating goes I actually don't foresee a huge change.

I wish that any other network besides NBC would carry the Olympics. They are terrible. Especially with the winter Olympics. Bob Costas is no Jim Mckay even though he might think he is. ABC wrote the book on the Olympics i just wish they still had them. Hell CBS did a lot better job with the winter Olympics compared to NBC.

I actually think they did a good job with the Beijing Games (WC tape delay aside). However, I was disappointed with their Vancouver coverage. They could have shown a LOT more live coverage, given that it was in North America, but chose not to in order to package it in their prime time show and preserve rating$. I guess I can't fault them TOO much since they were going to lose money on the coverage, but AFAIK they've been doing that even when they were making money off it. A small part of me wants ESPN to get it, BUT I've seen what they've done to coverage of other sports...I think any other major network (Fox or CBS) would just follow the NBC model of tape-delaying everything to prime time.

One positive about NBC's coverage is the theme song. It it does end up going to another network I'm going to miss hearing it...