Networks Seeking Safeguards Against a Major Boycott of 1988 Olympics

As negotiations are wind down on a U.S. television contract for the 1988 Olympic Games, the three major networks face last-minute bargaining with the International Olympic Committee over safeguards against a major boycott.

ABC, CBS and NBC, competing for the exclusive right to broadcast the Games live to U.S. audiences from South Korea, must submit their final bids to the IOC at its headquarters at Lausanne, Switzerland, before Sept. 13.

IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch has scheduled a news conference that day to announce the committee’s decision. Negotiations for TV coverage involving other countries will conclude by early next year.

Closing bids for the U.S. rights are expected to range between $500 million and $700 million, at least twice what ABC paid for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. The payment will form the largest single contribution toward meeting the Seoul Games’ costs.

IOC sources said the money was not the only point at issue.

“We have a responsibility to ensure the best and widest coverage for the Games and for the Olympic spirit,” said a senior IOC official who asked not to be identified.

“That is why we are negotiating only with the three major networks as far as the United States is concerned. We would not give the broadcasting rights to a cable company, for example, even if it offered five times what the big networks feel they can afford.

“And even the networks must meet certain basic conditions of coverage.”

An escape clause to cover the possibility of a major boycott of the Seoul Games will form a crucial part of the final Lausanne negotiations between the IOC and the networks.

The absence of such a clause cost NBC almost all of its $92 million investment when the United States organized a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

The IOC has since accepted the principle of some protection for the networks in case the number of athletes and countries drops “substantially below expectation.” But the IOC remains the sole judge of what is “substantial.”

ABC could not invoke its escape clause at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, despite the Soviet Bloc boycott, because the number of participating athletes and countries exceeded all previous records.

The IOC has vigorously resisted an attempt by all networks negotiating to cover the Seoul Games to establish a list of “important countries” whose absence from the Games would automatically require renegotiation of the basic contract.

“Every country has the right to accept or reject its invitation to the Games,” the official said. “We cannot be bound by guarantees involving a particular country.”

But he said the IOC might be willing to consider renegotiating a contract if the home team of a national network is absent. Thus, North Korea would pay less if its team refuses to go to Seoul.

The Soviet bloc has repeatedly dropped hints of boycotting the Seoul Games because it has no diplomatic relations with South Korea. North Korea has implicitly offered to prevent such a boycott if the 1988 Games were split between Seoul and Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. Samaranch has rejected the idea as a violation of the Olympic charter.

South Korean officials, however, believe a Communist boycott of the 1988 Games is less likely than originally feared because the Soviet bloc has announced its participation in the World Judo Championships and World Archery Championships in Seoul next month.

Samaranch has summoned the presidents of the North and South Korean Olympic Committees to a meeting in Lausanne in early October to seek formal assurances against a boycott.

As chairman of that meeting, the IOC sources said, Samaranch may offer a compromise, moving some informal and preliminary events from Seoul to Pyongyang. He is also expected to make new proposals for North and South Korea to compete in the Seoul Games with a joint all-Korean team.

Previous negotiations between the two Koreas for a joint Olympic team failed.