Jason Clarke

—The Associated Press: NBC posts $223 million 1Q loss on Winter Olympics Apparently NBC saw a 14% increase in viewership over the 2006 games in Turin, yet managed to post a $223 million loss. They primarily blame the $820 million it cost them to acquire the rights to carry the games. This blows my mind. Nobody held a gun to NBC’s head and said they had to carry the games; did it not occur to them that paying almost a billion dollars for the rights might make it hard to break even? After seeing how much money got vacuumed out of Vancouver and the surrounding area (and the massive effects that is having on education and other areas), and how much the I.O.C. got for TV and online rights, nobody can convince me that the Olympics is anything but a massive money grab. I hate to say it, but I think the I.O.C. simply takes advantage of the cities that inexplicably vie to host the games, as well as taking advantage of the good people that volunteer their services.