ESPN looking to Olympics coverage
Aug 21, 2008

ESPN is expected to bid for rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympics.

NBC, which as the rights to the Olympics through 2012, has made certain that ESPN gets little in the way of coverage of the sports event.

With Disney owned ESPN's growing popularity and increased revenues, it is expected that it will challenge NBC's lock on the Olympics rights.

In commenting on ESPN's expected bid for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia and the 2016 games which Chicago is vying for, John Skipper, head of ESPN'S content, stated "We would never put an event on tape delay." The network has vowed to air all of the competition live.

With NBC's unprecedented success with this year's Beijing Olympics, both CBS and Fox may be joining ESPN in geting the air rights for the future games.