There was, I think, a sense within NBC Sports that they were only interested in rights deals that were guaranteed profitable. Within that mentality, there were only two items worthwhile: the NFL and the Olympics. They had the NHL, but that was a revenue-sharing situation with no rights fees.
The spectacular loss on 2010 Vancouver, combined with that out-of-the-blue, 10-year deal with the NHL a couple months ago, may have signaled to Comcast that Ebersol et al seemed to have lost their way (even if Versus brings the cable fees into the occasion). On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 10:33 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 2:59 AM, JW <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > Ebersol's obsession with the Olympics seemed to defy any rational >> > financial pay-off. >> >> IMHO, Ebersol got it from Roone. Since Arledge always made a big deal >> of the Olympics, and was in the truck to help produce, his acolytes >> Ebersol and Ohlmeyer treated it the same way. (ABC also pioneered the >> heavily-edited, female-friendly prime time coverage.) > > I think that is a big part of it - and also what I mean by saying that > Ebersol's Olympics, while deeply flawed in many ways, were an improvement > over ABC's. As sentimental, canned and propagandized as Ebersol often was, > he was incrementally less so than Arledge's "Up Close and Personal". > > At the end of the Preakness yesterday Costas took a few minutes to recognize > Ebersol's resignation, and came pretty close to crying on air - if you did > not know better you would have thought Ebersol had died. He then threw it to > Tom Hammond (who called the race) and he did the same. The tone of both was > essentially that they will continue to try do to a first class job, but that > the loss of Ebersol constitutes a loss of expertise and a lessening of a > commitment to doing a first class job. Costas and Hammond are arguably the > two best broadcasters to work the Olympics, and their unmodulated, positive > testimony in favor of Ebersol has to weigh in. For its part, Comcast seems > to be saying something like "we want the Olympics, and we want to do a good > job with them, but we are not going to make a religion out of them - we are > out to make money". > > -- > TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "TV or Not TV" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
