Having Landed NBA Rights, NBC Says It Will Pass on ’94 World Cup

NBC said Monday that it will not bid for U.S. television rights for the 1994 World Cup, the first world soccer championship to be played in the United States.

Dick Ebersol, president of NBC Sports, also predicted that ABC and CBS would decline to bid for rights to the monthlong tournament.

“Given the ratings, I don’t think anyone will go for it,” Ebersol said while at Wimbledon to watch the tennis championships.

Turner Broadcasting’s TNT cable network is showing this year’s World Cup in the United States. Fewer than 2% of U.S. viewers who receive the network watched the three games involving the United States, which played in the World Cup for the first time in 40 years.

Turner, televising the World Cup for the first time, paid about $7.5 million for U.S. broadcast rights and said it will evaluate the final ratings before deciding whether to bid for the 1994 tournament.

NBC and the U.S. Soccer Federation last year agreed to a contract for the 1994 tournament, but the contract was rejected by FIFA because it was tied to a deal for rights to exhibition games involving the U.S. team. FIFA has said it will entertain bids for U.S. rights later this year. Since then, NBC agreed to a four-year deal with the NBA that begins this fall.

“Once we signed the NBA, we no longer were interested in the World Cup,” Ebersol said.