In December, a football game between the University of Michigan and its biggest rival, Ohio State, was cancelled after a coronavirus outbreak on Michigan’s team. If you can’t conceive how big that decision was, imagine Real Madrid and Barcelona calling off El Clásico, or pulling the plug on a gold-medal women’s hockey game between the U.S. and Canada.Or consider that cancelling the game cost Fox, the game’s broadcaster, a reported $18.5 million US in ad revenue.Now contrast that with the NFL’s insistence on continuing with a game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers even though COVID-19 outbreaks among the Ravens had already triggered a string of postponements. The six-day delay led to a rare NFL game on network TV on a Wednesday afternoon, but salvaging the matchup made financial sense. Cancelling could have cost NBC an estimated $71 million in ad sales.If you’re a big fan of the Summer Olympics, concerned they won’t take place this July, rest easy. The International Olympic Committee is scheduled to collect a reported $1 billion in broadcast rights fees tied to this summer’s event (the CBC holds the Canadian broadcast rights), and tied to that sum is a long list of broadcasters eager to recoup that money through ad sales or streaming app subscriptions.
Source: $1 billion in TV money is what ensures the Tokyo Olympics will happen | CBC Sports
