Which Network will get the Olympics?

I don't know if FOX or ESPN would have been better, but I was ready to see someone else give it a try.

Maybe Comcast will be different. Ebersol is out.

Based on his participation in the Maccabiah Games, I would bet Brian Roberts has a reverence for the Olympics. I hope it shows.

 

They should be able to do both and have been able to do both for 20 years now, with the prime-time programs appealing to totally different audiences.

 

The new merged Comcast-NBC has many more cable channels available for sports content because of all Comcast's regional channels. So they would be easily able to show all events live and taped highlights on NBC proper in prime time if they wish. By 2014, fans are probably going to be able to access foreign live broadcasting through the Internet anyway, laws or no laws, so they might as well.

 

Can we get Keith Olberman back to MSNBC in time to anchor the midnight Olympic show?

 

If they bought four games -- the location of which only two are known -- do we think they got some sort of guarantee that one of the other two games will be in the USA or at least North America?

If they didn't, I hope they at least signed a deal with the numbers contingent on what time zone the games are in.

 

They've had plenty of channel space available for a long time now, especially since the Universal deal.

 

I can't believe NBC would sign up for the next decade or more without acknowledging the need to be live and change its old ways. Also, I'm sure Comcast will jack up the rights fees on a whole lot of its cable stations in anticipation of the Olympics and recoup money that way, as ESPN does. In fact I predict that it will come down to a week before Olympics as to whether subscribers will see full coverage, with Comcast wanting a certain per-subscriber price for some of its channels and DirecTV, Dish and the others unwilling to pay it.

 

From a time zone perspective, Rio in 2016 suits U.S. television just fine. The Winter Olympics are going to go to that South Korean town in 2018, I think, which leaves Comcast with the 2020 Games as the only one left in the deal. This is likely to be another Asian host. They've got the money and the infrastructure.