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| The Gravity Games, up in the air for several months, now look to be heading to OLN. |
Comcast's Outdoor Life Network (OLN) has agreed to purchase the Gravity Games outright from Octagon for between $1 million and $2 million in cash, according to several action sports sources. Octagon retains the right to co-sell advertising and sponsorship inventory with OLN, and it will operate the games for an undisclosed fee.
The deal is being described as a small coup for Octagon, which managed to get cash for a property that had not been profitable in its five-year existence. Plus, it retains the sales-and-management role, which the agency is emphasizing as it eases out of property ownership on various fronts.
Primedia, which informed Octagon last fall of its intention to opt out of its co-ownership of the Games, will receive an undisclosed share of the deal.
The expenditure is a significant one for OLN and a sign of its seriousness about doing more original programming. Sources said the games will be heavily promoted via parent company Comcast to its 21 million customers, and the event would have 50 hours of programming in 2004 — most of it original — five times the amount that aired in previous years on partner NBC. A broadcast network tie-in hasn't been ruled out, sources said, although discussions haven't begun.
Rick Dudley, Octagon's president and CEO, would neither confirm nor deny a deal, saying only, "There will be an announcement on Gravity very soon." Peter Englehardt, OLN's senior vice president of programming, declined comment. Jim Ritts, Primedia president and CEO, would only say, "Primedia will benefit from its financial interest in the Gravity Games upon completion of a sale."
Octagon had been peddling the games for the past year and had described it to potential buyers as a property that has had $60 million invested in it by various owners and broadcast partners over the past five years.
OLN won kudos in 2003 for its coverage of the Tour de France and for its own programming around a group of five athletes attempting to scale Mount Everest. In the Gravity Games it will add another alternative sports property, this one considered the No. 2 action sports event behind the clear leader, ESPN's X Games.
Staff writer Andy Bernstein contributed to this story.
