Dick Ebersol may be gone from NBC but his Olympic-sized shadow remains. It was announced today that NBC has retained the rights to the Olympics, out-bidding Disney/ABC/ESPN and News Corp's FOX. The Comcast-NBC Universal group won the rights to the next four Olympic Games with a package reported at $4.38 billion.
The bid includes the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia; the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the 2018 Winter Games and 2020 Summer Games. This is a gamble for NBC given that host cities are not yet named for the 2018 and 2020 Games, meaning that the network doesn't know where it will have to go to air the games, nor does it know the time zone challenges which may exist.
Congratulations have to go to new NBC sports president Mark Lazarus as well as to Comcast president Brian Roberts. Many thought that Disney/ABC/ESPN would be an attractive network for the International Olympic Committee but the long-standing relationship with NBC--"the Olympic Network"--was not broken.
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