NBC Sports Group Chairman Dick Ebersol, seen in a file photo, has resigned. "I had a long run and loved every bit of it," Ebersol said in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
Dick Ebersol, the single-most important figure in NBC Sports' movement to be the network of the Olympics for a span of two decades, announced his resignation Thursday amid reports he butted heads with the company's new management team.
Ebersol, 63, annually made lists of the most powerful people in sports, starting when he took over the network's sports division in 1989 and began convincing parent company General Electric to invest billions of dollars into Olympic coverage despite the fact the network absorbed millions of dollars in losses.
In December 2003, Ebersol agreed to a nine-year contract to continue running NBC Sports and the Olympics through 2012. But this decision means he will stay at NBC through the end of this June and leave before the network covers the '12 Summer Games in London and prior to negotiations for the 2014 Winter and 2016 Summer games. The decision might give ABC/ESPN or Fox more leverage in their bidding process.
NBC Sports exec Mark Lazarus, a former high-ranking executive at Time Warner who came to the network last December, was promoted to take Ebersol's place.
Incoming NBCUniversal chief executive Steve Burke reportedly has been butting heads with Ebersol over contract talks as well as changes at the network as it tries to integrate the cable partners that have come into the fold after Comcast recently took over NBC.
"Dick Ebersol is an incredible talent whose contributions to the company over the last four
decades in sports, news and entertainment are unsurpassed," Burke said in a statement. "We will miss his intellect, experience, and passion for the television business."Ebersol said in a statement: "It has been a sincere privilege to tell so many remarkable stories that have inspired me throughout my entire career. Some of my favorite memories come from reading letters and talking to viewers who also have been moved by such powerful stories.
"I simply want to say thank you to all of those people who have touched me so deeply throughout my career."
Bob Costas, on Thursday's SiriusXM Chris "Mad Dog" Russo show, said
Ebersol's call to him that morning to explain what was going on was "the first that I had heard of it. But he sounded very much at peace with his decision and the exact reasons are his to explain."
At age 20, Ebersol joined Roone Arledge at ABC as an Olympic researcher. He learned about the importance of the event as a network asset while working at the 1972 Munich Games, and that included ingraining a philosophy of making the event a prime-time, tape-delayed production no matter what time zone it came from.
Under his watch, NBC carried the 1992, '96, 2000, '04 and '08 Summer Games, as well as the Winter Games of '02, '06, '08 and '10. In 1992, Ebersol was awarded the Olympic Order, an honor bestowed by the International Olympic Committee to recognize remarkable contributions to the Olympic movement.
Ebersol's fingerprints on recent NBC ventures included orchestrating the acquisition of "Sunday Night Football" and hiring John Madden and Al Michaels to broadcast it. He also worked a revenue-sharing deal with the NHL.
Source: http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_18097295?source=rss
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