TELEVISION networks worldwide have shelled out big dollars to secure Olympic broadcast rights, and are rightly safeguarding investments that run into the billions.
In the US, NBC paid $US1.2 billion ($AU1.57 billion) for Olympics coverage — and it’s ensuing exclusivity — which prompted an hilarious spoof from a sports anchor from a rival TV station.
Fed up with restrictions on using Olympics footage — just two minutes of video a day, WGN Chicago’s Pat Tomasulo told viewers he’d love to bring them the top news stories from the Olympics — if only he could show them.
“It’s not the actual sports of the Olympics I don’t like,” Tomasulo said in a live segment. “It’s NBC’s restrictions on the TV rights and anything Olympic-related,” the New York Post reported.
He said the video restrictions were just the beginning.
“We’re not even allowed to use the Olympic theme song this year,” Tomasulo said. “Did you know that? And we can’t even incorporate the Olympic rings in any of our unique graphics. We have to show the whole thing or not at all.”
Then he opted for comedy, inventing another international sporting event he’s fully allowed to cover.
The so-called “International Athletic Competition Run By One of the Most Corrupt Organisations in the World” bears an uncanny resemblance to the Olympics going on in Rio, but all of its features — logo, theme song, events and athletes — are slightly different.
Instead of the forbidden Olympic rings, this international competition sports “multicoloured triangles.”
And in place of the iconic Olympic theme song? R. Kelly’s “Bump ‘n Grind.”
He then read out Olympics news over video of his own high school wrestling highlights “because I have no video left”, airing a homemade tape taken by his parents, whom he credited, along with NBC, for the footage.
This story first appeared in the New York Post and is published with permission
Tomasulo credited his parents, and NBC, for the footage of his high school wrestling match.Source:Supplied
