The Olympics are supposed to promote peace and goodwill among people and countries. But only one day after the U.S. Olympic Committee announced plans to launch a new cable channel dedicated to coverage of Olympic sports, an international controversy has erupted, threatening to scuttle the channel and Chicago's bid to be the host city for the 2016 Summer Games.
The International Olympic Committee, the governing body that organizes the Games, on Thursday scolded the U.S. Olympic Committee for moving forward with plans to launch its own cable channel next year in partnership with cable TV giant Comcast Corp.
The IOC made clear that it was lashing out, in part, to protect dealings with its powerful broadcast partner, NBC Universal. NBC's parent, General Electric Co., is a major sponsor of the Games, and the network has agreed to pay $2.2 billion for the rights to broadcast the Olympics next year and in 2012.
NBC Universal separately owns a minority interest in another cable channel, Universal Sports, which showcases Olympic events.
"The proposed channel raises complex legal and contractual issues and could have a negative impact [on] our relationships with other Olympic broadcasters and sponsors, including our U.S. TV partner, NBC," the IOC said.
The IOC knew that the U.S. Olympic Committee, which coordinates the U.S. teams that compete in the biannual events, had been working on plans for several years to launch its own channel.
"But we had assumed that we would have an opportunity to discuss unresolved questions together before the project moved forward," the IOC said, adding that it was "disappointed that USOC acted unilaterally and, in our view, in haste by announcing their plans before we had had a chance to consider together the ramifications."
The timing of the announcement -- intended to make a splash at the Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho -- could come back to bite the U.S. Olympic Committee. This fall, the IOC is expected to decide whether Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro or Tokyo will be the host city in 2016.
Sports analysts said the U.S. group's ambitions to build its own television empire could unintentionally stoke anti-American sentiments among some IOC voting members. The U.S. and IOC have already been feuding over a revenue-sharing plan that the IOC believes favors the U.S. organization.
