Chicago-Area Sports Anchor Blasts NBC's Olympic Restrictions In Comedic Rant

NBC's restrictions on other news outlets using Olympics footage and intellectual property caused Pat Tomasulo, the sports anchor at Chicago's WGN-TV, to go on a comedic rant Tuesday that included the creation of his own multi-sport event. Tomasulo said, "It's not the actual sports of the Olympics I don’t like, it’s NBC’s restriction on the TV rights and anything Olympic-related.” Tomasulo: "We’re allowed to show two full minutes of video for our entire six-hour show. ... Every single video has to have text that says, ‘Courtesy of NBC Universal.’ We’re not even allowed to use the Olympic theme song this year. Did you know that? And we can’t even incorporate the Olympic rings in any of our unique graphics." He said, "So I thought, ‘You know what, today I’m not even going to report on the Olympics. I’m going to report on that other event that’s going on -- the International Athletic Competition Run By One of the Most Corrupt Organizations in the World, whose logo by the way -- wouldn’t you know it -- is the multi-colored triangles. You know what their theme song is? Their theme song is ‘Bump N’ Grind’ by R. Kelly.” The song then began to play and Tomasulo lip-synched along with the lyrics, noting, “Just to cover ourselves legally, I’m going to give the report over my high school wrestling highlights.” He then talked about “some familiar sounding but totally different athletes who did well in that international athletic competition.” Tomasulo: “Swimmer Mickey Phillips won another first place. Old Mickey, you know him -- he’s won 19 of those in his career, which is a record. ... Lady swimmer Katie Lee Decky -- that’s Katie Lee, like Kathie Lee, Decky is the last name -- set a world record in the ‘do anything you want stroke’” (WGN-TV, 8/9).