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The International Olympic Committee has delayed seeking bids for broadcast rights to future games for “some time” and may wait until the economy improves, NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol said.

“I’m not sure what some time means,” Ebersol said today on a conference call. “They are waiting for a healthier, brighter economic picture all over the world but particularly in the United States since they depend on it so much.”

The Olympic Committee may delay bidding on TV rights until a location for the 2016 summer games is selected, Ebersol said. NBC, owned by General Electric Co., scheduled the call to announce sportscaster Al Michaels will be daytime host for coverage of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver from Feb. 12-28. Michaels, 64, will anchor 50 hours of live weekend and weekday broadcasts. Bob Costas, 56, will be prime-time host.

NBC attracted record audiences to its coverage of the 2008 games in Beijing. The 2010 assignment is Michaels’ first for an Olympics since 1988, when he called hockey in Calgary, NBC aid today in a statement. The network, in fourth place in prime-time TV ratings for the fourth straight year, paid $894 million for Beijing and has broadcast rights for games through 2012.

The International Olympic Committee didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail sent to the organization’s press office after normal business hours in Switzerland.

General Electric, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, fell 3 cents to $6.66 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have dropped 59 percent this year.

ESPN, the most-watched sports network, may bid for Olympic broadcast rights, Robert Iger, chief executive officer of Walt Disney Co., said at a March 3 investor conference. The Olympics would be a good fit on ESPN, which can air events on six cable channels and on the company’s ABC broadcast network, he said.

“I don’t put the Olympics in the kind of must-have category, but that said I think they deliver real value from a programming perspective,” Iger said.

(Source: Bloomberg)