Broadcast giant quits NBC: what next for Olympics?

June 6 and 7 could be among the biggest days on the sports business calendar in 2011. They'll definitely be among the most important for the beancounters at the International Olympic Committee.

That's when American networks will be in Lausanne, Switzerland to make their bids for the rights to broadcast Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016. They may even look for a bulk discount by tendering bids on Winter 2018 and Summer 2020.

Munich, Germany, PyeongChang, South Korea and Annecy, France are bidding for 2018. The 2020 race has yet to begin.

NBC, which paid $2.2 billion for Vancouver 2010 and London 2012, is the incumbent. The former GE-owned broadcasting giant has held rights to all Summer Games since Calgary 1988 and Winter Games since Salt Lake 2002. But it will be without Dick Ebersol.

Ebersol dropped a broadcasting bombshell May 19 when his resignation from NBC was announced. NBC is now owned by Comcast and the official word is they couldn't agree on a new contract. The news broke exactly a month after Ebersol announced NBC and Versus's 10-year, $2 billion National Hockey League broadcast deal at a news conference with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

Ebersol's Olympic journey began in 1967 when he joined ABC as a researcher. Ebersol and Canadian Lorne Michaels collaborated to create Saturday Night Live for NBC in 1975. During Olympic Games, Ebersol would actually camp in custom-made quarters in NBC's facilities at the International Broadcast Centre instead of stay in a hotel room. Ebersol spoke at length about his storied career during the Denver 2009 SportAccord convention.

Ebersol enjoyed his Vancouver experience so much (and the fact that the British Columbia government became an important advertiser) that he appeared in a video honouring outgoing Premier Gordon Campbell at a Vancouver Board of Trade event on Feb. 4, 2011. NBC lost $223 million on Vancouver 2010 after being hit by the Great Recession's advertising slump.

Whether NBC's London 2012 coverage will suffer without Ebersol at the helm remains to be seen. He has many proteges who will now run the operation. NBC, sans Ebersol, said it still plans to go to Lausanne and bid for the Olympics broadcast rights, but it will be a hotly contested race with Disney-owned ABC-ESPN, Fox and CBS.

A source told me Ebersol has been bearish on a bid for Sochi 2014 for quite some time. The unfriendly time zone -- eight hours ahead of New York -- was the biggest worry. Live sports are best shown live, but not at 3 a.m. when viewers would rather be sleeping. During a meeting, Ebersol was asked what he thought Sochi would be worth. He paused for a moment and scribbled on a note pad. He turned around and showed those in the meeting. It was a big "0".

Sochi 2014 could well be a commercial bust for the IOC and whichever company wins the U.S. rights if National Hockey League players aren't playing the hockey tournament. The Russian resort is building everything from scratch and, from what I saw last June, is on-track to be ready for February 2014. But volunteers, venue operations, transportation and security remain big unknowns for Sochi, which passed the 1,000-day countdown on May 14.

Pondering poker's predicament

Is poker a game of chance or skill? Is it a game or a sport? The arguments will continue, but the ripple effects of the FBI's April 15 crackdown against PokerStars, FullTilt Poker and Absolute Poker have hit sports broadcasting. Disney-owned ESPN, which has a stake in Canada's TSN, has cancelled poker advertising and programming.

The 2011 Canadian Gaming Summit was held April 18-20 at the Vancouver Convention Centre as the global gambling industry reeled from what poker people have called "Black Friday".

Among the speakers at an April 20 seminar on regulation was Lawrence Walters, an Orlando, Fla., lawyer who specializes in gambling, intellectual property and constitutional issues. Here's what he had to say:

“What you have is an attempt to hold a foreign resident and operation that is legal and licenced in its host jurisdiction responsible for violating a New York misdemeanor statute that makes no reference to online poker. The feds have their work cut out for them in this case for sure.

“We believe that the thrust of the government's case here is really the fraud allegations, the bank fraud, the money laundering. These gambling indictment counts, one to seven in the indictment, were thrown in so that the government could obtain a plea to those counts and then wave around that guilty plea and say ‘see, they're guilty of illegal gambling and the (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) applies’. What they'll say in the backroom is ‘we've got you on the bank fraud, you're lying to these banks and we can prove it. We don't really care about that, we want you to plead guilty to the gambling offences and we can establish a bad precedent for the rest of the industry’.

“Department of Justice has been known to do this in other instances where they'll come up with regulatory offences or tax evasion and then obtain a plea to some sort of more politically charged offence.

“This is going to be one of the first cases, if it goes to trial, that will address head on whether or not the UIGEA applies to anything other than sports betting activity. Given the amount of money involved and the foreign residence of the defendants, it's going to be a precedent setting case.

“If history is any guide, the likelihood of a decision on the merits is pretty slim. In general criminal cases are resolved by way of a plea as opposed to a trial 98 percent of the time, if that wasn't the case the system would collapse. It's designed that way.

“DOJ prosecutors are ruthless in their attempts to get pleas, they will threaten families, children, and take all of your property and basically make it so that it would be financially and morally impossible to fight these cases on the merits. There have been people that have done it, they've toughed it out and won. But the likelihood is that this case will be resolved by some kind of deal.”

Coming atcha in 3-D!

Why did I not line-up with the masses at the VANOC asset sale in Delta?

The 200,000 items were bought by the provincial government as part of its bailout of VANOC and Games-used high definition TVs were listed at $199 for Sharp 19-inch and $499 for Panasonic 40-inch.

HD TV is a relatively new innovation in North America and it will already be obsolete by this Christmas when 3-D high definition TVs will be among the must-have items.

In fact, 3-D is the next revolution in movie and TV experience. You can thank Fox and its Avatar. We've come along way from Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Stewardesses.

NCAA Final Four games are being offered in select movie theatres around the United States in 3-D.

An April 3 match between Manchester United and Chelsea was shown in 1,000 pubs around the United Kingdom in 3-D. Sky TV, which is owned by Fox, will offer a 3-D channel with English Premier League soccer matches to 2 million homes this fall.

Coming this June - in time for the FIFA World Cup - is ESPN's 3-D network. Only in the United States? Pity.

Broadcasters and film producers have solved two problems with 3-D. It'll allow them to generate new revenue with premium ticket and subscription prices from viewers who want a better experience. 3-D also gets them one step ahead of counterfeiters. Hardware makers like Panasonic, Sony, LG and Samsung are also salivating at the potential for the next generation of the boob tube.

Panasonic's pavilion at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics showcased Olympic ceremony footage in 3-D. Vancouver's Olympics were the first Winter Games in full high definition from the source. Sadly, they will also be remembered as the last of the 2-D broadcast era.