I fondly look upon my Olympic volunteer service with cherished memories. Sure, there was some stuff I'd rather forget, but for the most part it was a great experience. My motto was "fix it right, the FIRST time." I used to joke with my boss that if a broadcaster had to call back a second time about one of my service calls, (which never happened, BTW), then they didn't want to talk to me---they probably should talk to my boss. Sure, there were jokes that the infamous Info '96 system really was the Info '92 results instead, but I think overall, most of the broadcasters were happy with the service we provided.
I found that once they got to know you and were comfortable with you in their office, they would start to tell you things. We all looked out for one another. Granted I had my favorites (who doesn't), but that never impacted the service I gave to what I called "my broadcasters downstairs." Some of them I knew from shortwave radio. Others were their colleagues from the TV side who joshed that they "were going to tell ______ about how I couldn't fix it right." I knew they were joking. But one day, my eyes got a real good education on one of those "shoot the breeze" discussions.
One frustrated guy asked me if I had seen Manolo Romero lately. For those of you who don't know, he is the person who owns ISB, which has had a chokehold on the Olympic broadcast contract for god knows how long. I replied that I hadn't, and sat down over a coffee to see what I could do to help.
Apparently this guy had a serious issue he wanted to sit down to talk to Manolo about. "We paid over $40 million dollars for the broadcast rights back to our home country, and I can't even get in to see him!" I really empathised with the situation, as I come from a service background myself, having done training at Sprint and BellSouth for a number of years.
I went downstairs and asked in the ISB office if he was around. No-we haven't seen him and were not sure when he is going to be in. Several more tries followed, all unsuccessful. Then I noticed a closed door in the corner and saw a sign that read "If the door is closed, you have no business here." Ouch. I got my answer.
I recall when the Olympic broadcast contract came up for renewal before the Salt Lake City Games. As I recall, there were 3 people who had put up bids: ISB, another group that was headed by someone from the Osmond family, and another individual, whom I can't recall offhand. I remember reading about the Osmond bid, and I thought it was quite good. In the end, the IOC decided in favor of ISB, and the rep for the Osmonds said that "we didn't stand a chance." The reasoning, the IOC said was that we "wanted to go with someone who had experience and whom were were comfortable with."
I recall in the old days that the host network of the country that had the Olympic broadcast became the so-called "host broadcaster." It was that way for years, until complaints surfaced that non-US countries were getting USA-oriented programming. The Canadians howled---although those of us living near Windsor had the luxury of tuning in to Channel 9 which is the CBC station, which was more famous for Hockey Night in Canada, and in the 1960s, Bill Kennedy Showtime, a program that showed a classic movie every afternoon, if we wanted Canadian-specific Olympic (or for that matter, sports programming.)
I've talked to broadcasters since then, and if there is one thing they would love to see is a change in the way the Olympics are broadcast and bidded out. Not all feel this way, but for those that do, those folks sure have valid reasons. Most of them are Games-time complaints about the way they are treated. I sure was witness to that when Manolo came roaring into my boss' office, pointing his finger and yelling about something. He got so loud, I had to close the door, as I was on a service call at the time.
The broadcasters deserve the best. They are paying big bucks for the transmission rights. The Osmond rep made a comment about the "rubber stamp" the IOC gave for Salt Lake City.
I would love to see more competition in this area. The IOC is just now starting to embrace the "new media" (albeit about 10 years too late), and exploring new and different ways to bring Olympic broadcast into your home. But none of that will matter, if there isn't competition for the actual broadcast contract itself.
In my opinion, it is not a valid reason that you are comfortable with someone to award them one of the most important contracts the IOC will ever sign. You want someone with a service mentality, someone that all the broadcasters are comfortable with, and in the end, everyone is happy: the IOC, the host broadcaster, and the 10,000+ accredited media who inhabit the IBC for almost two months of an Olympic year.
The next time the contract comes up for bid again, I propose: to allow companies that have a sincere interest to submit bids and for the IOC to take those bids seriously, OR go back to the old system (that worked quite well, thankyouverymuch), and in that way, everyone is happy: broadcasters, the IOC, and most importantly, your viewers. I have always maintained that if there were several companies bidding, then the actual cost to broadcast would go down, which would benefit every TV station that had Games-time broadcast rights in their home countries.
Of course the host city needs to make a profit. I am not denying them that, but there needs to be a sea-change in the way we think about Olympic broadcasting, and that change can only happen if the broadcasters themselves demand it.
Too many things are rubber-stamped in the Olympic world. The broadcast contract shouldn't be one of them.
