ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 16, 1995 TAG: 9512180048
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: ON THE AIR
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
It didn't take long for the impact of NBC's lock up of the Olympic rings to register at the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Switzerland.
Less than 48 hours after the Peacock Network smartly signed over $2.3 billion to add three Olympic Games to its three in the next seven years, the bid list for hosting the 2004 Summer Games grew.
TV industry executives like Fox Sports president David Hill, stunned like others by NBC's move, predicted a record number of cities will bid for the games in 2004, 2006 and 2008. ``This underwrites the Olympics well into the next century, because it means despite any global economic downturns, U.S. rights money is guaranteed to host cities.''
Buenos Aires joined the 2004 bidders, which now number 11. Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Athens, Cape Town, Stockholm, San Juan, Seville (Spain), Istanbul, Lille (France), and St. Petersburg - Russia, not Florida - already are in the game.
Rome is the favorite. The host city won't be chosen until 1997, and even though the IOC recently voted to keep 51 percent of the TV revenue from any Games, up from 40 percent, there will be no lack of interest. There also is a notion that NBC now will have the clout to help choose an Olympic venue that would play well on the tube.
That's because a city will know how much of NBC's money it will get. There's no uncertainty. And for NBC, locking up the Olympics 13 years from now was a mega-deal in more ways than one. The network rights fee increases only 3 percent, compounded annually. Some say the IOC made a bad deal, accepting a second straight pre-emptive bid from NBC.
The network paid $1.27 billion for the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney and 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City several months ago. NBC also has the Atlanta Games next summer, and already has turned a profit, even with considerable production costs. The Atlanta rights fee was $456 million. NBC already reports advertising sales in the $650 million range.
The distant deals include an even split of advertising revenue between the IOC and NBC after the network recoups its rights payment and production costs. That compounded 3 percent hike is a steal, considering NBC will pay 55 percent more for Sydney than it is for Atlanta, and 45 percent higher for Salt Lake rights than the $375 million CBS is paying for the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.
NBC will pay $456 million, $705 million, $793 million and $894 million for the next four summer games. After CBS pays $375 million in Japan, NBC owes $545 million for Salt Lake City and $613 million for the 2006 Winter Games. Starting with the Atlanta Games next July, NBC is getting six of the next seven Olympics for $4.026 million.
It does seem a small price to pay.
TYSON REDUX: The postponement of the Nov.4 Mike Tyson-Buster Mathis Jr. fight can be looked at two ways by the Fox Network.
When Tyson broke his thumb, Fox hopes for a huge rating for a ``free'' boxing show during the November ratings sweeps period was gone. Of course, for the rescheduled show tonight at 8 (WJPR/WFXR Channel 21/27), the network is paying only a $5 million rights fee, half of what it would have paid six weeks ago.
The show from Philadelphia's Spectrum will now run two hours instead of the previously scheduled three, and with Pat Summerall off calling an NFL game, another Fox football voice, Kevin Harlan, works his first boxing match. A 12-round title unification bout also is scheduled between WBC super welterweight champ Terry Norris and IBF junior middleweight king Paul Vaden.
SUGARY: Virginia Tech's trip to the Sugar Bowl will include two television specials and two radio talk shows with coach Frank Beamer. The TV shows will air locally on WSLS (Channel 10) and throughout a six-state region on Home Team Sports. WSLC Radio (610 AM) will air the call-in shows from New Orleans.
The TV shows, hosted by Bill Roth and Greg Roberts, will air on Channel 10 from 11 a.m.-noon on Christmas Day and from 3-3:30 p.m. on Dec. 31, the date of the bowl game. Cable's HTS has the same shows the same days, at noon and 3:30, respectively.
The ``Hokie Hotline'' radio shows with Roth and Beamer will air from 7-8 p.m. on Dec. 27 and 29.
AROUND THE DIAL: The East Coast Hockey League All-Star Game will be played Jan. 23 in Tallahassee, Fla., and for the first time, the game will be aired on cable TV to most of the eastern and southern United States via four networks. In this region, Home Team Sports has the game on a one-day tape delay, Jan. 24 at 4 p.m. ... It's generally assumed that when Boomer Esiason quits quarterbacking in the NFL, he will become a telecast analyst. Esiason will join CBS host Pat O'Brien in Tempe, Ariz., as a studio analyst for the network's bowl weekend, which includes the Sun, Orange and Fiesta bowls. If Esiason retires, CBS wants him as a game analyst for college football. He and former UCLA coach Terry Donahue would work with Jim Nantz and Sean McDonough on CBS' Big East and Southeastern Conference games starting next season. ... USA Network continues its first four-day golf event coverage of the World Championship of Golf in Jamaica with third-round coverage today from 2-5 p.m. The final round show airs Sunday from 1-4 p.m. ... If you haven't caught one of the first two airings on the American Football League documentary on Home Box Office, ``Rebels With a Cause'' is certainly worth a one-hour look. It will be aired again Sunday, Thursday and Dec. 27. ... Headed by Philadelphia's victory over Dallas, last Sunday's regional schedule of NFL games on Fox brought the network its highest-rated regular-season day, with a 16.7 Nielsen.
LENGTH: Medium: 96 linesby CNB