New technology can help keep the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) broadcast revenues moving ahead, but not at the astounding rate achieved in the last Olympic quadrennium, culminating with London 2012.
This was the stand-out message of an exclusive interview with Richard Carrión, chairman of the IOC's Finance Commission, conducted in the aftermath of last week's deal with Carlos Slim's América Móvil, which took the sum raised from broadcasting rights covering the 2013-2016 period to more than $4 billion (£2.6 billion/€3.1 billion).
"People are consuming media very differently than 10 years ago," Carrión, a possible candidate to succeed Jacques Rogge as IOC President, told insidethegames.
"There are more and more devices.
"People watching on broadband end up consuming even more of the broadcasts than those who don't use alternative media.
"So I think these technologies will add value.
"That is the unknown out there."
Nonetheless, Carrión - an increasingly prominent banker outside the Movement - acknowledged that, with growth in the United States, much the IOC's most valuable broadcast market, flat in 2013-2016, the remarkable 52 per cent growth rate clocked up in 2009-2012 was not repeatable.
"We are not immune to the global economic realities," Carrión said.
"One of the issues we need to deal with longer term is that broadcast revenues will not grow at the unprecedented rates we have seen [in the quadrennium just ended].
"They will grow at a slower rate."
Other parts of the globe were doing much to compensate for the temporary stalling in the value of US broadcasting rights.
"Europe, Asia and Latin America are growing healthily," he said.
"I think that is going to continue."
Significantly, the IOC's new Latin American partner is a mobile phone company, not a traditional broadcaster.
Carrión describes this sort of "gatekeeper" deal as "the direction things are going in the future".
By David Owen
Source: www.insidethegames.biz