Some big news in the world of the sports media this morning as the New York Times is reporting that Dick Ebersol, who has been in charged of NBC Sports since the late 1980's, has resigned.
This is a big development since Ebersol has been instrumental with keeping the United States coverage of both the Winter and Summer Olympics on NBC. The United States TV rights for the Olympics will be up for bid next month for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games and 2016 Summer Olympic Games, this certainly throws a wrench into the bidding process as ABC/ESPN and Fox along with NBC/Comcast all want to win the TV rights. Without Ebersol leading the way, who knows what will happen as NBC/Comcast was probably the favorite to retain the United States Olympic TV rights. If NBC/Comcast were to lose out on the upcoming Olympic bidding process, in my opinion there's no question that such a huge loss would damage the NBC Sports "brand". I say that because without the Olympics, what does NBC Sports have to hang their hat on, Sunday Night Football? The NHL? Horse racing's Triple Crown?
Earlier this month, news broke that Ebersol wanted to rebrand the Comcast owned regional sports networks ("RSN's") and have the RSN's assume the NBC Sports brand. With Ebersol no longer in the mix, it remains to be seen if NBC Sports will push ahead with these plans.
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