Big Game

ABC gets the 1984 Olympics

Even in the era of the minibuck the figure is astonishing: $225 million. But ABC, which last week agreed to pay that much for TV coverage of the 1984 Olympics, thinks it has a bargain. "We intend to more than recover our costs," ABC-TV President Fred Pierce proudly announced in Los Angeles, host city to the '84 summer Games.

In fact, when all the extra costs are added in, the total will actually be $325 million, give or take a million or two: ABC has also contracted to build a broadcast center at the Olympic site and to provide foreign networks with a clear signal out of the U.S. Even so, the network is certain it can fulfill Pierce's boast. "You can assume, making the bid we did, that we did a lot of homework," said Roone Arledge, president of the news and sports divisions. "We came into this with the idea we were going to make the best bid we could, and it was the only bid we made."

Nevertheless, Arledge and his analysts may have overestimated how much the other networks were willing to pay. Both CBS and NBC refused to say what they had offered the International Olympic Committee, holder of the TV rights, but their bids were probably under $200 million. One analyst reckoned that ABC might eventually lose up to $50 million.

But more is involved than dollars, and ABC, which considers itself the sports network, believes the Olympics are important to its prestige. It has televised the past three Olympics and was furious that in the last bidding NBC captured the rights to the 1980 Moscow Olympics for $87 million. ABC was determined not to let that happen again.

Arledge has turned previous Olympics into spectacular TV events. In 1960, in the dark days before Arledge showed what sports could do for ratings, CBS was able to buy the Olympics for only $550,000--.24% of what ABC paid last week. In 1968 ABC was still able to get the contests for $4.5 million. By 1976 the numbers started to mean something, and ABC paid $25 million.

In 1972, ABC allotted the Olympics only 64 hours. Next summer, to get back its $87 million, NBC will throw out almost everything else on its schedule for two weeks and devote 150 hours to events in Moscow. In 1984 ABC plans to raise the total to 200 hours. It will also have a tune advantage in Los Angeles that NBC will not have in Moscow: the West Coast is three hours behind the East, so daylight events will attract viewers in the East during prime-time hours. By that time, viewers may have ODed on athletics and turned to reruns of Laverne and Shirley.

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