IOC turns down joint bid from CBC and Bell

The International Olympic Committee rejected a joint bid of C$70 million (€54 million/$69 million) from Canadian public-service broadcaster CBC and telco Bell for the rights for the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games, according to the Toronto Star.

The value of the bid was less than half the C$153 million paid by a consortium that included telcos Bell and Rogers Communications in the current two-Games deal for the 2010 and 2012 Olympics.

“The ball is in their [the broadcasters’] court,” IOC bid consultant Peter Sisam said. “They will complain they need a lot of lead-in time for the Olympics, but we aren’t worried. There’s a market price for the Games and I think we’ll get to that.”

The rights fee is certain to be lower than the previous deal, which was inflated by the 2010 Winter Games taking place in Vancouver, Canada. Sisam said that Bell and Rogers sold C$190 million worth of advertising for the Vancouver Games.

Competition is also unlikely to drive up the fee this time as Rogers executives have said the company is no longer interested in bidding for the Olympics.

Additionally, Bell and CBC are concerned that a deal has not been reached so far for players from North America’s NHL to participate in the 2014 Olympic ice hockey competition – the Games’ biggest draw on Canadian television. IOC television and marketing services managing director Timo Lumme rejected the broadcasters’ request to submit one offer based on the involvement of NHL players and a separate offer based on NHL players not participating.

Canadian IOC member Richard Pound said he would not be surprised if the stand-off resulted in the IOC failing to secure a domestic rights deal for the Olympics.

“It almost happened when I was in charge,” said Pound, who was in charge of the IOC’s broadcast rights negotiations from 1983 to 2001. He said that a group of Australian broadcasters offered C$35,000 for rights to the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul and another low bid for the Winter Games in Calgary the same year.

“They wanted to play silly bugger,” Pound said. “I looked around at the table and said: ‘Are there any other bids? No, okay, I’m out of here’.”

Pound said he was then confronted by Rupert Murdoch, the head of Australia’s News Limited media conglomerate. “I just told him: ‘If I have to make an example of Australia, I will. I don’t care. You explain to people why the Games aren’t on in Australia’.”