Free Skate: ISU Willing To Give Away TV Rights To '09 Worlds
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ISU Could Give Away TV Rights
To Guarantee U.S. Viewers |
International Skating Union (ISU) President Ottavio Cinquanta announced that he would "give away television rights if it were necessary to guarantee U.S. viewers could watch" the '09 World Figure Skating Championships in L.A., according to Philip Hersh of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Cinquanta: "The [U.S.] and U.S. television stations have been very good to us, and we are not going to turn our back on them. I will let them have [the '09 event] free if there is no other solution." Hersh notes the ISU's four-year deal with ESPN expires after the '08 Worlds in Sweden, and Cinquanta "has had discussions with ESPN, NBC and Fox, but none is willing to pay anything near the $5[M] per year the current deal provides the ISU." The ISU will likely agree to a "profit-sharing contract with a minimal rights fee at best" that will be a "far cry from the $22[M] a year it received from ABC for the five-year deal" that ended in '04. Hersh adds that primetime ratings for the U.S. Championships have "dropped from double digits into the 4.0 range," and the USFSA, which made $12M annually from NBC over the previous ten yeas, "had to settle for a profit sharing deal with no rights fee in its new, three-year contract" with the net. Meanwhile, in another sign "of the decline in the sport's mass market popularity," sources said the Champions on Ice tour has folded after 38 years. The tour will be "subsumed by its rival, Stars on Ice." AEG bought Champions in '06, while IMG has owned Stars since its creation in '86 (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 12/12).
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