For the first time in more than a decade, NBC has toyed with the idea of giving Olympic trials rights to cable channels not affiliated with the broadcaster.
Last summer, at the beginning of its negotiations with Comcast for its package of digital rights, NBC offered to give the MSO rights to several Olympic trials, including boxing, which held its trials last August. Comcast would have telecast those trials on its Versus cable channel.
Those talks did not go anywhere and have been described by sources on all sides as dormant. Still, it’s significant that NBC was willing to part with some of its Olympic trials coverage at some point, given the number of cable and broadband channels that it operates. It also offers a window into what NBC is willing to do to get cable operators to carry its digital rights.
The network collaborated with MediaZone to offer live, online coverage of the 2008 U.S. Olympic men’s marathon trials in November, and NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel has said that NBC plans more online broadcasts of Olympic trials.
In the past, NBC has offered three types of trials packages.
The main package prior to the Athens Games in 2004 featured swimming, track and field, gymnastics and diving trials on NBC and USA Network, a cable channel that is owned by NBC. Other Olympic trials traditionally were handed over to other NBC affiliates. In 2000, for example, that affiliate was PAX TV, which offered 28 hours of Olympic trial programming. Four years later, that trials coverage shifted to USA Network, which NBC branded the cable television home of the U.S. Olympic Team in 2004.
The last time NBC sold Olympic trials rights to unaffiliated cable channels was in 1996, when ESPN telecast several sports, including popular events such as track and field and basketball. At that time, NBC did not have as many cable outlets, and was still months away from launching MSNBC.
NBC offered Comcast the MSO rights to
several Olympic trials, including boxing.
Other TV entities have approached NBC about broadcasting some of its Olympic content in the past, as well. For example, Turner Broadcasting proposed acquiring the cable rights to the Olympics from NBC ahead of the 1996 Atlanta Games. NBC refused.
The U.S. Olympic Committee, which owns the rights to the Olympic trials, collaborates with NBC and has an approval right to where and when a sport airs.
USA Boxing executives were not aware that coverage of its trials were offered to Versus. The governing body’s trials were taped by NBC in Houston last August.
NBC is expected to announce its entire Olympic trials package in the next 30 days. As of now, NBC and USA are committed to offering 23 hours of trials coverage — eight hours of swimming, 11 hours of track and field and four hours of diving.
“We’re extremely happy with the trials package,” said USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel. “It reflects not only the growing interest and value in the Olympic trials, but also the unique interest in the Beijing Games.”
That NBC dangled a package of Olympic trials to Comcast also highlights the network’s ongoing efforts to get cable operators to carry a Summer Olympics package of digital rights.
In the plan that was discussed during the summer, NBC shopped the rights to Olympic trials for several sports — including boxing — to Comcast-owned Versus as part of an overall deal to convince Comcast to carry NBC’s Summer Olympics package of digital rights across its broadband, wireless and video-on-demand platforms.
NBC is asking cable operators to agree to an increase in license fees for NBC’s cable channels — including CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, USA and now Oxygen — in exchange for carriage of those digital rights.
NBC’s $1.5 billion bid for the 2006 and 2008 Olympic Games included rights fees to carry the U.S. Olympic trials. The network is expected to offer unprecedented coverage of those trials across a variety of NBC platforms, including the primary network, cable channels and digital platforms.
