TV, Not Internet, Fuels Olympics

International Olympic Committee officials, wrapping up a two-day conference on the import of the Internet, said it’s clear television remains the financial engine of the movement, whereas the Internet offers intriguing possibilities for delivering content but no lucrative “revenue models.”

Through the foreseeable future, television will continue to be the “principal delivery mechanism” of the Games, influential IOC member Dick Pound of Canada said in comments that confirmed the vitality of contracts with NBC and networks in other parts of the world through 2008.

Practically, Pound said, that means that for the duration of those contracts Internet sites will likely be barred--just as they were during the recently concluded Sydney Games--from showing real-time video of the Games.

The IOC awards rights to televise the Games territorially. NBC has the U.S. rights, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. the Canadian rights and so on. The Internet, of course, knows no geographical boundaries--and therein lies the problem of allowing real-time video to go out over the World Wide Web, threatening the value of the TV contracts.

Half of the IOC’s $3.6 billion in projected revenue from 1997 through 2000 comes from TV rights, and most of that from NBC.