Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Follow-Up: IOC to Postpone Negotiations about US TV Rights

Lots of Olympic news today...

As we posted earlier this week, the IOC has now said it will postpone negotiations for the US TV Rights. Again, this could be beneficial for the Chicago bid because the conventional wisdom goes that potential bidders (NBC, ESPN and FOX) would pay more for the rights if the Olympics were held in their primary national markets.

The IOC's top TV negotiator was quoted in the article by gamesbid.com and also sees this as potentially beneficial for the IOC:
He added that knowing the host city could be an advantage in negotiations, especially if Chicago won. "It could, as this removes some of the uncertainty and could work to our advantage".
The question then becomes, will the IOC members who vote on the bid city be swayed by this news? If Chicago gets the 2016, the IOC could stand to make more money...

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