According to the New York Post, NBC has booked a huge block of hotel rooms for its Olympic advertisers and secured tickets to all the events at the Athens 2004 Games, but few or none have accepted the offer. Instead the network is putting their clients up in luxury resorts in Bermuda where they can watch the Games on NBC television.
One insider told the newspaper, “the security question has them terrified”.
But employees of NBC will be right there at the scene. A woman married to an NBC employee who is in Greece to cover the Games said “Athens is a mess. They have built all these new hotels, but the work started like a month ago, so my husband is staying in a place with no running water or electricity. They have two weeks to fix it. He is not optimistic that they will”.
The Post reports that the wife said the hope “in the bottom of everyone’s hearts is, at the last minute, the Olympics will be cancelled in Athens and transferred to Sydney”.
According to the newspaper, Olympic officials, worried about the lackadaisical attitude the Greeks took about building facilities for the Games, were said to have asked Sydney officials to be the back-up city if Athens wasn’t ready on time.
But, said the Post, its possible NBC employees at the Games can be transferred to the empty, more luxurious rooms originally earmarked for advertisers who have opted for Bermuda.
An NBC representative has denied any reluctance to come to Athens saying “two years ago, the plan was put in place to have alternative hospitality suites in Bermuda”.
Meanwhile, Dick Ebersol, head of NBC Sports, has met with President George Bush and other world leaders regarding numerous security issues. Reports say he is now confident the venues will be fully ready and the security will be in place.
Ebersol admitted that part of his security worries centre around the large number of NBC employees. “I think where our employees work and sleep will be safe. And the transportation system is in good shape.
“But I will not be encouraging our employees to wander off to a discotheque at two o’clock in the morning”.