A couple of things:
1) I LOVE sports and the Olympics, but I can't envision myself watching this channel for more than a couple hours a month.
2) I feel as though NBC screwed this one up - they already had the Universal Sports channel which I watched a lot during Beijing (for stuff like water polo and volleyball); it seemed only natural that they should have simply turned that into the Olympics channel, or offered to buy the rights to show all the events this new channel will show. Although, after my first response, I guess they made a good business decision?
I think that as long as they keep their expenses low and expectations low, it could do ok. And then during the 2012 Olympics, it could make a lot of money...that's not necessarily a bad business plan...keep costs extremely low 22 out of every 24 months, then make up for it in those other two months.
ReplyDeleteThe problem will be if they get too ambitious expecting many people to flock to the Olympic qualifying and make production costs too high. A couple cameras at a track & field stadium, the pool, and then all the other sports that people might find interesting if they knew about them (handball could be the new curling).
NBC completely missed the boat on this one. I'm actually shocked that ESPN hasn't filled this gap already - a supplier of premium sporting events which don't happen on a regular basis. World Cup, anyone? Or an awesome soccer channel at all, for that matter. And there is the Tour de France and all kinds of events which don't carry a lot of staying power, but do grab attention when they appear.
ReplyDeleteHow come ESPN (or NBC with Universal Sports) hasn't captured the market on these kinds of things? And if they don't, then I guess the Olympics should... but there is going to be a huuuuuuge programming/interest gap in between Olympics. It will lose money for 22 months in between those events, I am sure.