TV Networks Poised to Make Bids

Salt Lake City has won the 2002 Winter Games. Now the real bidding begins--with hundreds of millions of dollars for television rights.

Three of the four major networks are already positioning themselves for a run to broadcast one of the most watched sporting events on television.

Rights to televise the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, went for $375 million, an amount some believe will be the starting point for negotiations for the first Winter Games of the new century.

Regardless, the bidding promises to be intense. Network executives on Friday ranged from cagey to effusive.

Dick Ebersol, president of NBC sports, broke away from the U.S. Open in Southampton, N.Y., to draw a line in the sand. He predicted the rights for the Salt Lake Games “will certainly be on the order” of what CBS paid for Nagano.

The Salt Lake Bid Committee has estimated television rights will bring in at least $313 million when they are awarded 18 months to two years from now. That’s nearly 40 percent of the overall $798 million budget the bid committee presented to the International Bid Committee.

Ebersol called that figure “extremely prudent,” given that the Winter Games will be held on U.S. soil for the first time in 22 years.

“That will have an enormous impact, especially when it comes to national sponsorships,” he said. “There is always more interest by the McDonald’s, the Cokes and the Budweisers when things are happening at home.”

Logistics will be convenient because the networks won’t have to ship equipment all over the world, and the networks will be able to broadcast events live to the East Coast.

That could make the Salt Lake Games a big moneymaker.

Ebersol was able to comment because he wasn’t in Hungary. At least two other network sports presidents--David Kennedy of CBS and David Hill of Fox--reportedly were in Hungary for the announcement.

Executives at those networks also expressed interest Friday.

Telephone messages left with ABC Sports were not immediately returned.