ESPN Mulls Bid for Olympics

NEW YORK When NBC makes a run for the U.S. rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympics, it will have plenty of company.ESPN president George Bodenheimer said his network would be in the running to telecast the Games. And Fox, which participated in the last round of bidding, confirmed it also is interested.CBS also might throw its hat into the ring when the International Olympic Committee begins to entertain bids, which could happen within the next six to nine months.The ratings success of the Summer Games in Beijing has piqued the interest of the Peacock's rivals."If I was holding the auction, I would definitely want to hold it after this Olympics," said John Skipper, evp, content at ESPN.Some element of mystery surrounds the next round of bidding, including which Olympics will be awarded and when the process will start. It's likely that only the 2014 and 2016 Games will be up for grabs and that bidding will begin before October 2009, when the host cities for the '14 and '16 Games will be named.NBC holds the rights to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and the 2012 Summer Games in London.Sean McManus, president of CBS Sports and CBS News, told The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday that the jury is still out on whether his network will submit a bid."We didn't bid last time, and I don't think a lot has changed," McManus said.He didn't take anything away from NBC's success but said that, with the exotic locale and the Michael Phelps story line, it might be the proverbial "lightning in a bottle.""We wouldn't base any analysis on the numbers that NBC is getting right now," McManus said.ESPN execs also said a bid wasn't necessarily a slam dunk."It still has to make business sense," Bodenheimer said.Making business sense is still key. The Games are worth at least $1 billion each, and networks must have the cable and broadcast assets to capitalize on the opportunity. ESPN, for example, has some country-wide rights across the U.S.ESPN execs applauded NBC's ratings during the Beijing Games -- and the multiplatform approach that ESPN said it pioneered a decade ago."It validates the belief we had 10 years ago or more that sports fans are not just enjoying sports on television," Bodenheimer said.Skipper took NBC to task for its use of a "live" bug during its West Coast telecasts of the Olympics. He also decried what he called NBC's "unnecessary manipulation" for not allowing West Coast viewers to watch Phelps live.He also said he doesn't think NBC's "live" bug on taped content was the right way to go, even though he understands the reasons."We would never put an event on tape delay," Skipper said. "When we put 'live' on the screen, we mean 'live right now.' We don't mean live three hours ago."NBC Sports declined comment.

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ESPN Mulls Bid for Olympics

Paul J. Gough

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Paul J. Gough