Case Study Analysis
Order Description
Select one of the cases from the assigned textbook: Cases 3: Assessing Global Market Opportunities, cases 3-1, 3-2, 3-3, 3-4 (pp.639–654). Read the case and answer the respective questions at the end of the case.
for anything else. According to Nielsen Media Research, the
number of Americans watching the Super Bowl, the main annual
football championship, averaged 94 million. The top eight
television programs in America are all sporting events. Some
3 billion people watched some part of the 2000 Olympiad—over
half of mankind.
The reason television companies love sport is not merely that
billions want to tele-gawk at ever-more-wonderful sporting feats.
Sport also has a special quality that makes it unlike almost any
other sort of television program: immediacy. Miss seeing a particular
episode of, say, The Offi ce , and you can always catch the
repeat and enjoy it just as much. Miss seeing your team beat hell
out of its biggest rival, and the replay will leave you cold. “A live
sporting event loses almost all its value as the fi nal whistle goes,”
says Steve Barnett, author of a British book on sport. The desire to
watch sport when it is happening, not hours afterward, is universal:
A study in South Korea by Spectrum, a British consultancy, found
that live games get 30 percent of the audience while recordings get
less than 5 percent.
CASE 3?2 Swifter, Higher, Stronger, Dearer
Television and sport are perfect partners. Each has made the other
richer. But is the alliance really so good for sport?
Back in 1948, the BBC, Britain’s public broadcasting corporation,
took a fateful decision. It paid a princely £15,000 (£27,000 in
today’s money) for the right to telecast the Olympic Games to a domestic
audience. It was the fi rst time a television network had paid
the International Olympic Committee (IOC, the body that runs the
Games) for the privilege. But not the last. The rights to the 1996
Summer Olympics, which opened in Atlanta on July 19, 1996,
raised $900 million from broadcasters round the world. And the
American television rights to the Olympiads up to and including
2008 have been bought by America’s NBC network for an amazing
$3.6 billion (see Exhibit 1).
The Olympics are only one of the sporting properties that
have become hugely valuable to broadcasters. Sport takes up a
growing share of screen time (as those who are bored by it know
all too well). When you consider the popularity of the world’s
great tournaments, that is hardly surprising. Sportsfests generate
audiences beyond the wildest dreams of television companies
Exhibit 1
Olympic Broadcast Rights Fees, *
$bn (world totals)
Source: International Olympic Committee. Used
by permission of the International Olympic
Committee.
*Rights for 2000 to 2008 Games. Rights for 2010 and 2012 Games packaged.
† For winter games two years earlier.
0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
1980 84 88 92 96 2000 04 08 12
Winter games
Summer games
†
†
†

Case Study Analysis
Order Description
Select one of the cases from the assigned textbook: Cases 3: Assessing Global Market Opportunities, cases 3-1, 3-2, 3-3, 3-4 (pp.639–654). Read the case and answer the respective questions at the end of the case.
for anything else. According to Nielsen Media Research, the
number of Americans watching the Super Bowl, the main annual
football championship, averaged 94 million. The top eight
television programs in America are all sporting events. Some
3 billion people watched some part of the 2000 Olympiad—over
half of mankind.
The reason television companies love sport is not merely that
billions want to tele-gawk at ever-more-wonderful sporting feats.
Sport also has a special quality that makes it unlike almost any
other sort of television program: immediacy. Miss seeing a particular
episode of, say, The Offi ce , and you can always catch the
repeat and enjoy it just as much. Miss seeing your team beat hell
out of its biggest rival, and the replay will leave you cold. “A live
sporting event loses almost all its value as the fi nal whistle goes,”
says Steve Barnett, author of a British book on sport. The desire to
watch sport when it is happening, not hours afterward, is universal:
A study in South Korea by Spectrum, a British consultancy, found
that live games get 30 percent of the audience while recordings get
less than 5 percent.
CASE 3?2 Swifter, Higher, Stronger, Dearer
Television and sport are perfect partners. Each has made the other
richer. But is the alliance really so good for sport?
Back in 1948, the BBC, Britain’s public broadcasting corporation,
took a fateful decision. It paid a princely £15,000 (£27,000 in
today’s money) for the right to telecast the Olympic Games to a domestic
audience. It was the fi rst time a television network had paid
the International Olympic Committee (IOC, the body that runs the
Games) for the privilege. But not the last. The rights to the 1996
Summer Olympics, which opened in Atlanta on July 19, 1996,
raised $900 million from broadcasters round the world. And the
American television rights to the Olympiads up to and including
2008 have been bought by America’s NBC network for an amazing
$3.6 billion (see Exhibit 1).
The Olympics are only one of the sporting properties that
have become hugely valuable to broadcasters. Sport takes up a
growing share of screen time (as those who are bored by it know
all too well). When you consider the popularity of the world’s
great tournaments, that is hardly surprising. Sportsfests generate
audiences beyond the wildest dreams of television companies
Exhibit 1
Olympic Broadcast Rights Fees, *
$bn (world totals)
Source: International Olympic Committee. Used
by permission of the International Olympic
Committee.
*Rights for 2000 to 2008 Games. Rights for 2010 and 2012 Games packaged.
† For winter games two years earlier.
0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
1980 84 88 92 96 2000 04 08 12
Winter games
Summer games
†
†
†