Updated: NBC Wins Rights to Next Four Olympics

By Cam Martin 

NBC beat out competing bids from ESPN and Fox Sports and was awarded rights to broadcast the next four Olympics by the International Olympic Committee, the IOC announced today in Switzerland. NBC’s winning bid was $4.38 billion. NBC paid $2.2 billion to air the 2010 and 2012 Games.

Mark Lazarus, chairman of the NBC Sports Group, said “It is a great thrill to know that NBC’s unsurpassed Olympic heritage and unprecedented partnership with the IOC will continue through 2020. The Olympics are a significant part of NBC and the IOC again recognized NBCUniversal’s unmatched ability to promote, market, program and produce the Olympic Games. London, Sochi, Rio and the 2018 and 2020 Games will benefit from our ability to galvanize all the resources of the newly-formed NBC Sports Group to bring the Games to more homes and more platforms than ever.”

IOC President Jacques Rogge said, “We are delighted to have reached an agreement with our longstanding partner NBC. We received three excellent bids and would like to thank each broadcaster for their presentations. In the end we were most impressed with NBC, which not only has a track record for broadcasting the Games that speaks for itself, but also has a clear and innovative vision of where it wants to take the broadcast of the Games between now and 2020. We look forward to continuing to build on our already strong relationship beginning in London next year.”

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NBC now will have exclusive rights to the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, as well as the 2018 Winter Games and 2020 Olympics, whose sites have not yet been selected. NBC has broadcast every Summer Olympics since 1988 and every Winter Games since 2002.

 

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