EXCERPT:
COSTAS: "We should preface this by saying that no one could have anticipated COVID, no matter what the venue is. But the IOC deserves all of the disdain and disgust that comes their way for going back to China yet again. They were in Beijing in 2008. They go to Sochi in 2014. They're shameless about this stuff. And so, this takes place not only amid COVID, as did the Tokyo Games of a year ago, but as you mentioned, the restrictions on press freedom, and the sense that everyone there is being monitored in some way, we had that feeling in 2008 in Beijing — I think if anything. It's been ramped up now. And any — it isn't just NBC. Any network that broadcasts big sports events is simultaneously in a position, it's quasi-journalistic, at best. You're reporting a news event, and what surrounds it in the case of the Olympics, it isn't just what's confined to one game in a stadium, you're reporting on an event, but you're also promoting the event. Newspapers and CNN and whatever other outlets don't pay a rights fee to cover the White House or whatever they're covering. NBC pays a huge rights fee along with the production costs. They want people to watch it. It's a centerpiece of the entire network strategy. At a time where everything is fractionalized, very few things draw huge audiences. The NFL does, the Super Bowl, the Olympics do, they're part of a strategy.”