NBC: Sponsors are not wavering
Posted: Saturday February 27, 1999 10:50 AM
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol
says he is not worried about losing advertisers over the
snowballing scandals rocking the Olympic movement, but one Salt
Lake official admitted some reluctant sponsors equate Olympics
with bribery.
Ebersol, whose network spent $3.5 billion to win U.S.
television rights for all upcoming Olympics through 2008,
including the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games, sees no fallout over
all the revelations of improper payments and gifts to members of
the International Olympic Committee.
Shelley Thomas, in charge of communications for the Salt
Lake Organization Committee (SLOC), painted a different picture
than fellow-panelist Ebersol at the International Radio and
Television Society conference on restoring public confidence in
the Olympic movement.
Thomas said she has heard potential sponsors say "they're
not ready to stand up at this point and put their logo next to
the word bribery in the headline."
Thomas said many of the reluctant sponsors said they still
believed in the Olympic movement, and she was confident that
changes in the system would restore public confidence.
Ebersol said he has had no defections from his core group of
sponsors, although John Hancock Financial Services said recently
it was considering abandoning plans to proceed with some $13
million of Olympic television advertising.
"There hasn't been any fallout from advertisers to date,"
said Ebersol, "We're half sold [for the Sydney Games in 2000]
and that's with just 11 companies involved. With those
advertisers there is clear support with one exception.
"We have another dozen advertisers that we are in the
process of closing deals with and I would say shortly that will
be done. All of this is predicated on just one thing -- that the
IOC within the next 90 to 100 days does its job as well as the
Salt Lake organizers."
Ebersol said he did not think television viewers would be
turned off by the scandals, because all they care about are the
athletes and the competition and "dammit that's what they're
going to see."
SLOC executed a organizational shake-up following revelations
of improper dealings by members of the Salt Lake bidding
committee, which won the right in 1995 to stage the 2002 Games.
The IOC's own committee investigating alleged corruption has
already recommended that a meeting of all IOC members on March
17 and 18 should vote to expel five members for breaking rules
on taking gifts. They also will question some other members
mentioned in a Salt Lake ethics committee 300-page report.
The IOC members have been temporarily excluded from the
organization until the March session. A further four have
already resigned.
As new SLOC president and chief executive officer Mitt
Romney told Friday's conference, "Hopefully those of us who are
running it [the Games] will do our jobs so well you'll stop
hearing about us."
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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