How the IOC-NBCUniversal Olympics deal came about

By Nick ZaccardiMay 7, 2014, 5:41 PM EDT

Thomas Bach first floated the idea of the International Olympic Committee and NBCUniversal extending their partnership in November, two months after he was elected IOC president.

NBCU was awarded U.S. broadcast rights for six more Olympics through 2032 on Wednesday. Its previous deal, from 2011, had NBCU as the rights holder through 2020.

In 2011, the rights were awarded to NBCU after a bidding process with other networks. This time, the negotiations with NBCU since November were not discussed until Wednesday.

“Sorry that we proceeded in keeping it secret, but it’s also an expression of the excellent partnership that we’ve enjoyed [with NBCU] and that we can rely on each other,” Bach said.

Bach said he and two other IOC officials had dinner with NBCU partners in New York in November, where Bach said he “was floating the idea for the first time.” The other IOC officials were director general Christophe de Kepper and marketing director Timo Lumme.

The idea wasn’t shared with anybody else from the IOC from then on, Bach said. They met again in Sochi with Comcast Corporation Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts. Bach said Comcast looked favorably on the idea at the time, and they negotiated more in the same small circle. The deal was signed by both sides in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Wednesday.

“This is a happy day for the whole Olympic movement,” Bach said. “The Olympic values are in good hands with a partner whom we trust, whom we have full confidence in. We can say this because of the longtime experience that we have with NBC, who have a more than excellent track record when it comes to braodcasting the Games. We are sure that this track record will even be improved in the future.”

Roberts said the Olympics’ importance to Comcast and NBCU was solidified by the last two Games, citing London 2012 as the most watched sporting event in U.S. history with 217 million viewers. He also said Sochi was the most consumed Winter Games in history.

U.S. Olympic Committee Chairman Larry Probst, who is also an IOC member, said the deal will not influence whether the USOC bids for the 2024 Olympics. The U.S. hasn’t hosted an Olympics since the 2002 Winter Games and is currently narrowing a field of potential 2024 candidates with an eye on deciding if it will bid by the end of the year. The 2024 Olympics will be awarded in 2017.

Bach said the $7.75 billion deal was not only about money. More importantly, it was about preserving Olympic ideals.

“We are thinking long term in the IOC,” he said. “We are here for 120 years [so far], and we want to be there much longer. We want to leave a good legacy.”

Official signing by IOC President Thomas Bach and Sec. General Christophe De Kepper pic.twitter.com/hWmI7tWmz9

— Patrick Sandusky (@PatrickSandusky) May 7, 2014

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Football takes significant step in Olympic push

By OlympicTalkMar 29, 2023, 2:18 PM EDT

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Football took another step toward possible Olympic inclusion with the IOC executive board proposing that the sport’s international federation — the IFAF — be granted full IOC recognition at a meeting in October.

IOC recognition does not equate to eventual Olympic inclusion, but it is a necessary early marker if a sport is to join the Olympics down the line. The IOC gave the IFAF provisional recognition in 2013.

Specific measures are required for IOC recognition, including having an anti-doping policy compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency and having 50 affiliated national federations from at least three continents. The IFAF has 74 national federations over five continents with almost 4.8 million registered athletes, according to the IOC.

The NFL has helped lead the push for flag football to be added for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Flag football had medal events for men and women at last year’s World Games, a multi-sport competition including Olympic and non-Olympic sports, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Football is one of nine sports that have been reported to be in the running to be proposed by LA 2028 to the IOC to be added for the 2028 Games only. LA 2028 has not announced which, if any sports, it plans to propose.

Under rules instituted before the Tokyo Games, Olympic hosts have successfully proposed to the IOC adding sports solely for their edition of the Games.

For Tokyo, baseball-softball, karate, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were added. For Paris, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were approved again, and breaking will make its Olympic debut. Those sports were added four years out from the Games.

For 2028, the other sports reportedly in the running for proposal are baseball and softball, breaking, cricket, karate, kickboxing, lacrosse, motorsports and squash.

All of the other eight sports reportedly in the running for 2028 proposal already have a federation with full IOC recognition (if one counts the international motorcycle racing federation for motorsports).

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Helen Maroulis stars in wrestling documentary, with help from Chris Pratt

By Nick ZaccardiMar 29, 2023, 10:05 AM EDT

Getty

One of the remarkable recent Olympic comeback stories is the subject of a film that will be shown nationwide in theaters for one day only on Thursday.

“Helen | Believe” is a documentary about Helen Maroulis, the first U.S. Olympic women’s wrestling champion. It is produced by Religion of Sports, the venture founded by Gotham Chopra, Michael Strahan and Tom Brady. Showing details are here.

After taking gold at the 2016 Rio Games, Maroulis briefly retired in 2019 during a two-year stretch in which she dealt with concussions and post-traumatic stress disorder. The film focuses on that period and her successful bid to return and qualify for the Tokyo Games, where she took bronze.

In a poignant moment in the film, Maroulis described her “rock bottom” — being hospitalized for suicidal ideations.

In an interview, Maroulis said she was first approached about the project in 2018, the same year she had her first life-changing concussion that January. A wrestling partner’s mother was connected to director Dylan Mulick.

Maroulis agreed to the film in part to help spread mental health awareness in sports. Later, she cried while watching the 2020 HBO film, “The Weight of Gold,” on the mental health challenges that other Olympians faced, because it resonated with her so much.

“When you’re going through something, it sometimes gives you an anchor of hope to know that someone’s been through it before, and they’ve overcome it,” she said.

Maroulis’ comeback story hit a crossroads at the Olympic trials in April 2021, where the winner of a best-of-three finals series in each weight class made Team USA.

Maroulis won the opening match against Jenna Burkert, but then lost the second match. Statistically, a wrestler who loses the second match in a best-of-three series usually loses the third. But Maroulis pinned Burkert just 22 seconds into the rubber match to clinch the Olympic spot.

Shen then revealed that she tore an MCL two weeks earlier.

“They told me I would have to be in a brace for six weeks,” she said then. “I said, ‘I don’t have that. I have two and a half.’”

Maroulis said she later asked the director what would have happened if she didn’t make the team for Tokyo. She was told the film still have been done.

“He had mentioned this isn’t about a sports story or sports comeback story,” Maroulis said. “This is about a human story. And we’re using wrestling as the vehicle to tell this story of overcoming and healing and rediscovering oneself.”

Maroulis said she was told that, during filming, the project was pitched to the production company of actor Chris Pratt, who wrestled in high school in Washington. Pratt signed on as a producer.

“Wrestling has made an impact on his life, and so he wants to support these kinds of stories,” said Maroulis, who appeared at last month’s Santa Barbara Film Festival with Pratt.

Pratt said he knew about Maroulis before learning about the film, which he said “needed a little help to get it over the finish line,” according to a public relations company promoting the film.

The film also highlights the rest of the six-woman U.S. Olympic wrestling team in Tokyo. Four of the six won a medal, including Tamyra Mensah-Stock‘s gold.

“I was excited to be part of, not just (Maroulis’) incredible story, but also helping to further advance wrestling and, in particular, female wrestling,” Pratt said, according to responses provided by the PR company from submitted questions. “To me, the most compelling part of Helen’s story is the example of what life looks like after a person wins a gold medal. The inevitable comedown, the trauma around her injuries, the PTSD, the drive to continue that is what makes her who she is.”

Maroulis, who now trains in Arizona, hopes to qualify for this year’s world championships and next year’s Olympics.

“I try to treat every Games as my last,” she said. “Now I’m leaning toward being done [after 2024], but never say never.”

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