CBS Agrees to Pay $375 Million for Rights to ’98 Winter Olympics

CBS announced Wednesday that it has agreed to pay $375 million for the rights to the 1998 Winter Olympics at Nagano, Japan, an increase of $80 million over what it paid for the rights to next month’s Games at Lillehammer, Norway.

Neal Pilson, CBS Sports president, said the $375 million was “well within our price range.”

CBS paid $243 million for the 1992 Winter Games at Albertville, France, and $295 million for this year’s Winter Olympics. ABC paid $309 million for the 1988 Calgary Games.

NBC paid $456 million for the rights to the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics and $401 million for the 1992 Summer Olympics at Barcelona, Spain.

Pilson said that the Fox network’s outbidding CBS last month for the rights to NFL games was not a factor in CBS obtaining the rights to the Nagano Games.

“We planned all along to be aggressive,” he said, pointing out that CBS is the incumbent. “(The Winter Olympics) work for us and we wanted to retain them.”