ESPN BUYS SLEW OF S. AMERICAN MEDIA RIGHTS FOR '10 AND '12 GAMES
TMC
By John Ourand & Tripp Mickle, Staff Writers, SportsBusiness Journal
ESPN picked up the '10 Vancouver and '12 London Olympic rights for
several South American markets. The deal includes broadcast TV and
radio rights in Argentina, plus cable and satellite rights in
Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and
Uruguay. The deal also includes satellite-only TV rights in Venezuela.
"This agreement expands our relationship with the IOC and adds the
Olympics to the schedule of world class events we cover," said ESPN
Int'l Exec VP & Managing Dir Russell Wolff, who negotiated the deal
with IOC Exec Board member Richard Carrión.
South and Central American rights holder and regional representative
OTI (Organización de TelevisiónIberoamericana) paid $29.75M for the
rights to the '06 Turin and '08 Beijing Games. Those rights included
every country in South America for that quadrennial. But for the
'09-12 period, the IOC sold the rights for Brazil separately and
collected $60M. ESPN would not say how much they spent on the rights.