Comcast has signed a four-year sponsorship deal with the USOC, gaining marketing rights it did not previously own despite subsidiary NBCUniversal’s long-term, $7.65B television deal with the Olympics. Comcast claims several categories with Team USA in the deal, becoming the official provider of Internet, video distribution, wireless, home security and business services. Comcast replaces longtime USOC telecommunications partner AT&T. Technology advancements and mergers had made the telecom category very complicated in recent years as AT&T and Comcast, both close Olympic partners in different ways, became competitors in many lines of business. Comcast expects to launch a wireless service next year. Terms were not disclosed, but sponsorships in other key categories with the USOC are usually valued in the low seven figures annually. Under the deal, Comcast may use Team USA and the Olympic rings in its advertising/marketing materials for the Comcast, Xfinity and Comcast Business brands. The deal covers both the '18 PyeongChang Games and '20 Tokyo Games, and entitles Comcast to the first right of negotiations for a possible '24 L.A. Games should that bid succeed. In August, Comcast built an Olympics feature into its Xfinity X1 platform that gave viewers unified access to broadcast, cable and streaming coverage of the Rio Games on their screen, including secondary content like athlete profiles. Both parties negotiated the deal directly. There is precedent for NBC’s corporate parent becoming a marketing partner on top of media deals. In '03, NBC won rights to air the '10 Vancouver and '12 London Games with a bid that also made then-parent General Electric a worldwide sponsor. GE sold NBC to Comcast in '11 but has since extended its global Olympic rights through '20. In this case, however, the sponsorship deal developed separately with Comcast.
