Summer Olympics: NBA paid big bucks for TV rights, but IOC still no pushover regarding changes

In 2011, NBC won the right to broadcast all of the Olympic Games from 2014 through 2020 at a cost of $4.38 billion (U.S.).

This year’s Rio Olympics alone will cost the network $1.23 billion. Three years later, the network re-upped with the International Olympic Committee through 2032 for the eyepopping amount of $7.65 billion.

But reciprocity apparently only goes so far.

Sure, the IOC agreed to move the ratings-magnet swimming finals at this year’s Summer Olympics to the nighttime in order to placate its sugar daddy, and now some of those muchanticipated finals won’t begin until after midnight Rio time — to the chagrin of some.

But when NBC went to Olympic officials and asked that it change the Parade of Nations at the Aug. 5 opening ceremony — so that nations come out in English alphabetical order with the U.S. athletes coming out at a more ratings-friendly time — the IOC said no.

Portuguese is the official language of the opening ceremony and the U.S. athletes will come out 64th in the 207-nation parade, sandwiched between the Federated States of Micronesia and Estonia.

Bloomberg’s Tariq Panja explains why:

“In the traditional Parade of Nations, teams enter the arena in alphabetical order. Switching the languages would have put the United States’s 555 athletes near the back, giving American audiences a reason to watch the full broadcast. As it is, the team will enter somewhere in the middle, because in Portuguese, the delegation is known as Estados Unidos.

“Communications director Mario Andrada told the Americans yesterday that International Olympic Committee rules require that the official language of the opening ceremony has to be that of the host country.”

NBC, which took a bunch of heat for its heavily tape-delayed broadcast of the 2012 Olympics in London (five hours ahead of Eastern Time), has a much better time-slot situation this year because Rio is only one hour ahead of the East Coast so viewers will see many more events as they happen.

Still, the network will be showing this year’s opening ceremony on a one-hour delay so its broadcast can start at 8 p.m. EDT.

Spoiler alert: The U.S. marches early.