NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus noted that "the jury
is still out" on whether or not NBCUniversal would turn a profit on the London
Olympics and admitted "we don't know where we will end up" during a press call
today on their Olympics' coverage. But he also stressed that sales "were very strong"
and that the financial prospects for the 2012 London Olympics have "improved"
since they first made the bid. Lazarus made the comments during a press call on
the Olympics coverage today.
Outside analysts such as David Joyce, a media analyst with
Miller Tabak & Co., have predicted loses at around $100 million for the
London Games, which would be less than the $223 million loss suffered for the
2010 Vancouver Winter Games. NBCUniversal paid about $1.18 billion for the 2012
London games.
A key factor in the financial success of the 2012 Games and
the upcoming Olympic games will be both prime time audiences and the additional
inventory they will have from delivering a record 5,500 plus hours of content.
Lazarus also noted that they were "confident" that their deal
for the four upcoming Olympics games through 2020 would be "a profitable deal
when the final scores come in." That deal has been valued at about $4.4
billion.
Separately, NBCU announced that it had launched a site where
multichannel subscribers could authenticate their subscriptions, which would
give them access to the 3,500 plus hours the company plans to stream during the
games. The move is designed to help users get an early start that could avoid
last minute problems in accessing the content.
Users can authenticate their subscriptions at NBC Olympics
Live Extra, the home of Olympic live stream content at NBCOlympics.com. The
company is expecting the launch NBC Olympic Live Extra apps in mid-July that
will give subscribers access to content on their tablets and smart phones.
