IOC Sells TV Rights to Canada and Africa
27 April 1998The IOC has secured separate deals for the Canadian and African television rights for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, vice-president Dick Pound announced on Monday. Pound, speaking after the opening day of the IOC executive board meeting, said the Canadian rights for the next five Olympics had been sold as part of a package to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and two cable networks for US$160 million.
The African rights to the Sydney Olympics fetched US$12 million, he said. "We are pleasantly surprised," Pound said. "The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has paid $28 million alone for the Sydney rights compared to $20.75 million for Atlanta and that was in prime time."
Pound said preliminary worldwide figures for this year's Nagano Winter Olympics suggested the cumulative audience would match Lillehammer's record 10.7 billion viewers. He said figures were up in most countries but were down in the United States. "That's very disappointing to us and a matter to be taken quite seriously," Pound said. "But I don't want to suggest it was a disaster. It wasn't as though people turned off their sets. "There were still 184 million viewers which is twice as many as the SuperBowl."
Pound also said he had been pleased by the success of the Olympic website during the Nagano Games. "There were 600 million hits during the period of the Games which is probably an indication of things to come with that medium."
