IOC predicts US rights deal by July 16/02/2011 |
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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has revealed that a US broadcasting rights deal for the next two or four Olympic Games – likely to be the biggest sports TV agreement in history – should be sealed by July.
The IOC has delayed awarding the rights for the US market for over a year because of the financial crisis but now looks set to finalise a deal in the coming six months.
"I suspect we will have a deal in place by [the IOC session in July in] Durban," Richard Carrion, the IOC's chief negotiator for the contract, told Reuters. "Our goal is hopefully to have it by then.
"We are currently in the process of reviewing the contract, updating the contract from 2010-2012," added Carrion, who is also a member of the IOC executive board.
The US deal is the IOC's single biggest revenue source with the 2010-2012 contract with NBC netting about $2bn for the IOC, and it is also the biggest single deal with one company for sports TV rights.
Carrion said he expected the new deal to top the NBC figure.
"The previous deal was around $2bn – [for the new deal] we will see an increase," Carrion continued.
Carrion insisted that the IOC would go into the upcoming negotiations with an open mind and let the broadcasters chose the length of the deal.
"We are still open to the idea [of a four-Games deal],” he said. “We will listen to their proposals. But it is not something that we are going to demand from them [broadcasters]."
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