The International Olympic Committee is getting a tepid response from U.S. broadcasters in Vancouver as it tries to build up interest in the next round of bidding for Olympic rights in 2014 and 2016.
Two potential bidders decided against making the trip to Vancouver, and the ones that ventured north were prepared to tell IOC executives that they will not bid as much as NBC bid on the 2010 and 2012 Games. NBC paid $2.1 billion in rights for the Vancouver and London Olympics.
The IOC is hosting top executives from ESPN and Turner Broadcasting during the Games. But executives from other potential bidders, Fox Sports and CBS, are not planning to travel to Vancouver during the two-week event, and their absence deals a blow to one of the IOC's biggest selling points around the Games.
Last Saturday, an ESPN delegation led by President George Bodenheimer was scheduled to sit down with IOC
President Jacques Rogge and other IOC members at the committee's hotel, the Westin Bayshore.
Also, this week, IOC executive board member Richard Carrión plans to meet with the ESPN executives about future Olympic rights.
Turner executives, led by David Levy, also have meetings set up with IOC executives in Vancouver.
And CAA, which is advising the IOC on how to approach the U.S. media market, will have executives in Vancouver during the early part of this week.
Several sources described these meetings as preliminary, with no hard offers being exchanged. But the gathering of such high-ranking officials suggest that the IOC is getting closer to deciding when to open the bidding process.
Nobody knows when the IOC will begin accepting bids officially.
Some think the IOC will wait till early next year, after Comcast's NBC acquisition is official. However, IOC sources said they may move earlier and beat the NCAA
to market if the NCAA decides to pull out of its CBS contract. The theory is that NCAA tourney bidding could suck billions of media rights dollars out of the marketplace.
When asked in late January when the IOC will open bidding, Timo Lumme, director of IOC television and marketing services, said, "The easiest way to answer that question is that the market will kind of tell us." Pressed further about whether a decision had to come before the NCAA possibly opts out, Lumme added, "We'll see. It's part of the overall consideration."
By giving media executives an in-person Olympic experience, IOC executives hope they can turn the pictures NBC is feeding back into the United States into another multibillion-dollar rights fee.
"We had steady increase in the U.S. rights for more than 20 years," Rogge said during a conversation in Lausanne, Switzerland, in late January. "We made a good jump for '10 and '12, Vancouver and London. We are now negotiating in Europe for '14 and '16 and we see no drop in Europe, so there is no reason why there will be a drop in the United States."
Despite the solid television ratings NBC received during the first week of the Games, a deal for the 2014 and 2016 Games won't be easy this year, as media companies already have floated balloons about bringing the rights fee back down.
NBC has admitted that it is losing upward of $200 million on the Vancouver Games. Among other possible suitors, Fox is showing disinterest, ESPN is tempering expectations, and Turner and CBS still haven't committed to a bid
Two potential bidders decided against making the trip to Vancouver, and the ones that ventured north were prepared to tell IOC executives that they will not bid as much as NBC bid on the 2010 and 2012 Games. NBC paid $2.1 billion in rights for the Vancouver and London Olympics.
The IOC is hosting top executives from ESPN and Turner Broadcasting during the Games. But executives from other potential bidders, Fox Sports and CBS, are not planning to travel to Vancouver during the two-week event, and their absence deals a blow to one of the IOC's biggest selling points around the Games.
Last Saturday, an ESPN delegation led by President George Bodenheimer was scheduled to sit down with IOC
President Jacques Rogge and other IOC members at the committee's hotel, the Westin Bayshore.Also, this week, IOC executive board member Richard Carrión plans to meet with the ESPN executives about future Olympic rights.
Turner executives, led by David Levy, also have meetings set up with IOC executives in Vancouver.
And CAA, which is advising the IOC on how to approach the U.S. media market, will have executives in Vancouver during the early part of this week.
Several sources described these meetings as preliminary, with no hard offers being exchanged. But the gathering of such high-ranking officials suggest that the IOC is getting closer to deciding when to open the bidding process.
Nobody knows when the IOC will begin accepting bids officially.
Some think the IOC will wait till early next year, after Comcast's NBC acquisition is official. However, IOC sources said they may move earlier and beat the NCAA
to market if the NCAA decides to pull out of its CBS contract. The theory is that NCAA tourney bidding could suck billions of media rights dollars out of the marketplace.When asked in late January when the IOC will open bidding, Timo Lumme, director of IOC television and marketing services, said, "The easiest way to answer that question is that the market will kind of tell us." Pressed further about whether a decision had to come before the NCAA possibly opts out, Lumme added, "We'll see. It's part of the overall consideration."
By giving media executives an in-person Olympic experience, IOC executives hope they can turn the pictures NBC is feeding back into the United States into another multibillion-dollar rights fee.
"We had steady increase in the U.S. rights for more than 20 years," Rogge said during a conversation in Lausanne, Switzerland, in late January. "We made a good jump for '10 and '12, Vancouver and London. We are now negotiating in Europe for '14 and '16 and we see no drop in Europe, so there is no reason why there will be a drop in the United States."
Despite the solid television ratings NBC received during the first week of the Games, a deal for the 2014 and 2016 Games won't be easy this year, as media companies already have floated balloons about bringing the rights fee back down.
NBC has admitted that it is losing upward of $200 million on the Vancouver Games. Among other possible suitors, Fox is showing disinterest, ESPN is tempering expectations, and Turner and CBS still haven't committed to a bid
