The global broadcasting rights deal for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and the 2012 London Summer Games is expected to be about 30 per cent higher than the previous Turin/Beijing rights package, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Thursday.
The IOC expects Asian media companies to pay significantly more money to broadcast upcoming Games. Discussions are underway with a handful of South Korean media companies and will open with Japanese broadcasters in coming months. The previous two Games package deal was sold in Korea for $18.4 million.
But even without the Asian markets, TV rights sales so far for the 2010 and 2012 Games have exceeded $2.9 billion, eclipsing the $2.5 billion for the Turin and Beijing Games.
The US deal alone is worth $2 billion, an increase of about 35 per cent, while Canada saw a 100 per cent increase to $160 million because of Vancouver hosting the 2010 Winter Games.
Richard Carrion, a negotiator for the IOC, said the Internet and other new media gives broadcasters new ways to make money from the Olympics.
Carron, who also headed negotiations for the US and Canadian deals and will soon start talks in Australia, said the IOC was interested in appointing a single broadcaster who would act as a “gatekeeper of the bundle”.
That broadcaster would then fragment it into smaller packages taking advantage of new media, instead of the usual IOC approach of selling the rights in an already pre-determined package deal, reports Reuters.
IOC President Jacques Rogge told the National Olympic Committees this week he expected the final rights figure to be about $3.3 billion.
