New Olympics channel already creating headaches

Will the U.S. Olympic Committee grab the gold or suffer one of those crushing "agony of defeat" moments?

A controversy over the U.S. committee's plans to launch its own cable channel intensified today when the International Olympic Committee, the worldwide organization that organizes the games, jumped into the fray. The IOC said in a statement that it doesn't want the U.S. group's proposed new cable channel to interfere in dealings with its powerful television partner, NBC Universal.

"The proposed channel raises complex legal and contractual issues and could have a negative impact [on] our relationships with other Olympic broadcasters and sponsors, including our U.S. TV partner, NBC," the IOC said.

NBC Universal's parent company, General Electric, has committed $2.2 billion to broadcast the 2010 and 2012 Olympic Games and owns a minority stake in a start-up venture, Universal Sports. That new cable channel, available in 45 million homes, is designed to shine a spotlight on off-season events, lower-profile Olympic sports and other "lifestyle sports" programming.

But if the U.S. Olympic Committee succeeds in launching its own channel, then Universal Sports might find itself without some of the key Olympics programming that it is banking on. NBC Universal owns the venture along with InterMedia Partners, a private equity firm.

Another concern for the IOC is whether the U.S. committee's efforts will become an unwanted wrinkle in the bidding for the next round of television rights for the 2014 Olympics and beyond. Already, NBC Universal, Disney's ESPN and News Corp.'s Fox Sports have expressed an interest in bidding on the Games.

The flap exposes more friction between the IOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee, which have had an ongoing feud over their revenue sharing plan. 

"The IOC's cooperation with USOC includes working together on Olympic sponsorship and broadcasting agreements within the United States,'' The IOC said in its statement. "We were aware that the USOC had been considering a new 'Olympic broadcast network,' but we have never been presented with a plan, and we had assumed that we would have an opportunity to discuss unresolved questions together before the project moved forward. It is for this reason that the IOC is disappointed that USOC acted unilaterally and, in our view, in haste by announcing their plans before we had had a chance to consider together the ramifications."

-- Meg James

[Updated] NFL signs new TV deals with Fox and CBS

Updated as of noon, May 19. As expected, the NFL has settled its feud with Comcast and struck renewal deals with Fox and CBS.

The National Football League is wrapping up two-year extensions on its current TV deals with CBS and Fox. An announcement could come as early as this afternoon, people close to the talks say.

The price tag will go up, but not through the roof. Currently, Fox pays about $712 million annually for its NFC Conference package and CBS shells out about $620 million for the American Football Conference. The increases this time around, according to Sports Business Journal, which has been following the story closely, will be in the 3% to 5% range. That is in line with the last deal, and Company Town confirmed those figures. For non-sports fans, Fox pays more for its deal primarily because the NFC has more big-city teams than does the AFC.

Although their current deals run through the 2011 season, both the league and the networks have incentives to ink new contracts rather than wait. While there are not too many bright signs in the economy, if it turns around in the next year or so, the league would have leverage over the broadcast networks to jack the fees higher. Better for the networks to renew now and not risk that.

Conversely, the NFL is trying to resolve its bitter dispute with Comcast over carriage of the league's cable network. Peace is near, and how this is being settled requires the broadcast networks to let the league throw Comcast and other cable operators a bone. Specifically, the league's Red Zone channel, which is currently seen only on satellite broadcaster DirecTV, will be made available to cable operators. The league hopes that by doing this it will boost carriage for its cable channel, which is not widely distributed yet. The NFL could also be facing labor unrest after the 2010 season and wants to have its TV revenue locked in for the foreseeable future.

— Joe Flint

Ticketmaster digs deeper into the secondary market

Phish may not jam to it, but the secondary ticket market is getting bigger all the time.

The band gave its cultish followers something to swoon over today — a fairly cheap-seats three-night reunion — and something to (potentially) whine about — no resales on tickets sold through the band's site, with the risk of being turned away at the gates for showing up with a scalped stub, as Ticket News reported.

The announcement came the same day Ticketmaster-owned TicketsNow officially launched a service that makes it easy for individuals to resell their tickets. The site, formerly dominated by brokers, follows the model of other resellers by promising authentic tickets, handling buyer-seller communication, offering prepaid shipping labels, and pocketing a 15% commission from the seller on each ticket sold. (It's more upfront about the fee than some rivals, making sure sellers see it before they begin the ticket-posting process.)

On the similarities, StubHub spokesman Sean Pate says that this is old hat for his company.

“StubHub revolutionized the ticket market eight years ago by offering this level of service,” he notes in an e-mail.

The one thing it doesn’t have so far is a last-minute selling option for individuals. TicketsNow sellers have to have enough time to FedEx tickets to the buyer, so the sale ends well before the show. StubHub, which leads the secondary ticket sale market, can keep sales going until just before showtime, as long as a seller has mailed the tickets to StubHub in advance.

Ticketmaster acquired TicketsNow in February, and has said the company helped boost Ticketmaster revenue by 30% in the quarter ended June 30, to $382.4 million from $293.4 million. Ticketmaster purchased the company for $265 million, which is $45 million less than eBay paid for the larger StubHub in 2007.

And although Ticketmaster may have once been the biggest critic of reselling tickets — pursuing legislation to restrict brokers who sought big profits, among other efforts — it’s now playing the game.

But it still allows artists who may want to restrict resales to do so. AC/DC made select fan-club tickets for its upcoming tour “paperless,” which is less about being green than about keeping others from making green, whether for the sake of preventing fans from being priced out of up-close seats, or for the sake of keeping band-unaffiliated resellers from making big bucks, or both. Tom Waits and Metallica have used the technology too.

--Swati Pandey

Photo: Trey Anastasio of Phish. Credit : Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Countdown to a curse: How long until Madden NFL coverboy Brett Favre is screwed?

Are the New York Jets in for a surprise?

Brett "Gunslinger" Favre, Green Bay Packer icon, recently announced he was joining the Jets after a storied 16-year run with the Packers.

But was New York's score ill-timed?

On Aug. 12, Madden NFL '09 comes out with Favre on the cover. And we all know what that means...he's doomed.

Last year's cover model Tennessee Titans' Vince Young told Jimmy Kimmel that he prayed about not falling victim to the Madden NFL curse, which is said to take down some of the league's finest in injury or performance stats.

Seattle Seahawks' Shaun Alexander, 2007, foot injury; Philadelphia Eagles' Donovan McNabb, 2006, sports hernia; Baltimore Raven's Ray Lewis, 2005, broken wrist; Atlanta Falcons' Michael Vick, 2004, injured fibula and is now serving time for hosting a dog-fighting ring.

The list goes on.

Poor Jets. Poor Favre. Will the 38-year-old's rifle arm come out of its socket? Or will his new AFC rivals, the Patriots and Colts, inflict some hideous damage that will ruin his perfect attendance record?

The countdown is on ...

-- Denise Martin and Jevon Phillips

Related:

Photo Gallery: 10 Worst Pop Culture Curses

And below we posted one of our favorite Brett Favre movie cameos, on screen with Ben Stiller, Matt Dillon and Cameron Diaz in "There's Something About Mary."