Gee - I wonder how that could have happened?
Here we are barely three weeks out from the Super Bowl and NBC has yet to sell all its ads. Same for the ensuing Winter Olympics. The network is predicting a half-billion dollars revenue from the big game pitting who-knows-who against who-knows-who in who-cares-where.
And another $900 million from ad sales during the Winter Olympics in South Korea immediately after, assuming no war. It’s the first time these two major sports events occur so close to each other on the same network.
It’s an immense economic gamble for NBC, which has committed to live-sports programming but now finds live-sports ratings tumbling for events like the National Football League and Olympics. NBC is paying $12 billion to those old guys on the Olympic Committee through 2032.
While the kneeling crap has contributed to this mess, the big problem is the massive multi-year contracts NBC (and other networks) have signed with the sports leagues, which was all well and fine when viewership and ad rates were going up like gangbusters. When the shit started to hit the fan a few years back and accelerated this year, they're left holding the bag because the contracts are fixed and can't legally be renegotiated. I suppose they'll try, but the leagues can always say no. At least it's not my mess. |