Death of IOC head Juan Antonio Samaranch
I have not updated this in a while. In April 2010 the former head of the IOC Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain passed away. He was 89. Samaranch was the head of the IOC from 1980-2001 and in that time he was very US friendly as we had several Olympic games held on US soil. He guided the Olympic movement from boycotts through the Salt Lake City 2002 bid scandal.
NBC Keeps USA broadcasting rights to every Olympic games through 2020 games
I applaud the IOC for letting NBC's Bob Costas make an appeal to keep the games on NBC for 4 more Olympics. 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020.
NBC's bid was more than a billion dollars more than FOX and ABC/ESPN/Disney.
NBC will pay $775 million for Sochi, $1.226 billion for Rio, $963 million for the 2018 Winter Games and $1.418 billion for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
I feel this is important for NBC to keep the games as I'm sure everyone is used to the announcers that cover the sports like Rowdy Gaines in swimming, Al Trautwig in gymnastics, Chris Marlowe in beach volleyball and Tom Hammond, Ato Boldon and Dwight Stones in Track and Field.
These announcers are very experienced and knowledgeable and they have a sense of Olympic history of which they have previously experienced broadcasting earlier Olympic games.
I feel good knowing for 5 more Olympics the same good NBC faces will be covering the games. At this point I wouldn't trust any other network to do as good of a job as NBC at broadcasting the action.
NBC's coverage overall is another subject as they do have a tendency to tape live events to be shown in primetime.
