NBC pays 4.38 billion dollars for Olympic TV rights

Jun 7, 2011, 20:56 GMT

Los Angeles - US broadcaster NBCUniversal has agreed to pay 4.38 billion dollars for the domestic television rights to the Olympic Games through 2020, it was announced Tuesday.

According to NBC and the International Olympic Committee, the deal covers the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, and the 2018 Winter Games and 2020 Summer Games at yet-to-be determined locations.

NBCUniversal, the long-time broadcaster of the games in the US, beat out rival bids from Fox and ESPN for the rights. The deal gives the US broadcast giant the right to show the games on television, internet and mobile platforms.

'We are delighted to have reached an agreement with our longstanding partner NBCU,' said IOC President Jacques Rogge. 'We received three excellent bids and would like to thank each broadcaster for their presentations. In the end, we were most impressed with NBCU.'

NBC said all the Olympic events would be broadcast live either on television or over the internet. The network recently merged with cable TV provider Comcast, whose chief executive Brian Roberts said in a statement that he was excited by NBC's continued involvement.

'We are honoured to continue as the US Olympic broadcaster for the remainder of this decade. The vision for our new Comcast-NBCUniversal was to create new platforms and technologies to distribute the very best content,' he said.

Read more about Media

Read more about Olympics IOC

Read more about US