With NBC yesterday winning the bid to televise the four Olympics following the London Games next summer, there is the "matter of where the 2018 Winter Games and 2020 Summer Games will be,” according to Philip Hersh of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. USOC CEO Scott Blackmun yesterday “did not rule out a 2020 bid and said he had talked informally to people in a few cities, including Chicago 2016 bid chief Patrick Ryan, about such a possibility.” However, Blackmun yesterday said that the “first matter of business between the USOC and IOC is resolving the longstanding dispute over the shares of U.S. television rights (12.75 percent) and the IOC's global sponsorship program (20 percent) that the U.S. currently receives.” IOC President Jacques Rogge said that the NBC deal “assured the IOC's financial security.” Rogge: “We are very indebted to the United States of America for what they have done in the past and are doing now for the Olympic movement.” Hersh writes, “So one might think it would be in the IOC's interest to throw NBC a very large bone. … A 2020 Olympics in the United States.” Rogge said of the possibility of a U.S. bid, "If there is a bid coming for 2020 from the USA, we would be very happy." Hersh notes several U.S. cities, including Dallas, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Pittsburgh and Tulsa, "have made public expressions of interest in bidding for 2020." Two-time host L.A., which lost to Chicago in the domestic competition to be the U.S. bidder for '16, would “seem the best-prepared 11th-hour candidate other than Chicago.” Countries have “until Sept. 1 ... to submit a bid city application for the 2020 Summer Games.” Rome currently “is the only official applicant, with Tokyo expressing strong interest” (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 6/8). rEvolution President & CEO John Rowady “believes NBC’s faith in submitting” a bid for four Olympics “might help convince the U.S. Olympic Committee to take another crack” at bidding for the Summer Games. Rowady: “I have no doubt that NBC would like to leave its stretch of coverage with another U.S. Games” (ADAGE.com, 6/7).
