CBS Has Won U.S. Broadcast Rights to 1998 Winter Games

CBS will announce today that it has won the U.S. broadcast rights for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, industry sources said Tuesday.

CBS emerged the winner after Fox Broadcasting Co., the other contender for the TV rights, declined to bid, a source said. Fox had been seriously weighing a bid for the 1998 Winter Olympics in the wake of its surprise $1.58-billion winning bid for a new NFL contract.

One observer said Fox’s commitment to the NFL, where analysts expect it to lose between $600 million and $700 million over the course of the four-year contract, probably played a role in Fox backing away from the Olympics.

A considerable amount of prestige was at stake for CBS. With the NFL headed to the upstart fourth network, CBS faced the unwelcome prospect of seeing its sports franchise erode even further if it did not have a big-ticket item such as the Olympics.

ABC and NBC had already dropped out of the bidding, saying it had become too costly.

Sources said CBS will pay about $350 million for the broadcast rights, signaling that TV fees for the now biannual event continue to escalate. During the 1980s, the networks lost hundreds of millions of dollars on the NFL, Major League Baseball and the Olympics.

CBS Chief Executive Laurence Tisch will reportedly make the announcement in New York along with officials from the International Olympic Committee, which awards the TV rights. A spokesperson for CBS declined to comment.

The Olympics in recent years have turned into a financial quagmire for the networks, and each time the networks vow to hold the line on TV rights fees.

CBS said it broke even on the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, for which it paid $243 million.

The network has also paid $300 million for the 1994 Winter Olympics scheduled for next month in Lillehammer, Norway. And NBC is paying $456 million for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

For the 16 days and nights of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, CBS reportedly has already sold more than 85% of its advertising time.

The network has said it is about $50 million ahead of where it was five months before the 1992 Albertville Games. On top of the rights fees, the network must field an army of producers and technicians halfway around the globe to cover the event. The production tab can exceed $70 million.