LAUSANNE, Switzerland — For smaller Olympic sports, the Internet promises greater attention. But these same sports also know where their money is coming from.
"Don't kill the goose that laid the golden egg!" said Paul Henderson, president of the International Sailing Federation.
His federation receives 52 percent of its budget from the International Olympic Committee, which in turn gets just over half its money by selling TV rights to the games.
So while the Internet provides greater access to such Olympic sports as sailing, archery, triathlon and softball, the federations are wary of how Internet media convergence — as a potential threat to traditional broadcasting — could affect their funding.
The larger sports also bank on revenue from TV rights and are concerned how the Web will figure into the mix.
At a two-day conference that ended Tuesday, the IOC, broadcasters and Internet industry leaders addressed the growing complexities of the new medium and its impact on sports and the Olympics.
Dick Pound, the IOC's marketing chairman, said the issues will be raised at the IOC's executive board meeting next week.
He said the conference produced no major change in IOC policy regarding TV rights. He also said he foresaw difficulty in granting Olympic accreditation to independent new media companies, given the number of mainstream journalists attending the games.
Pound said he understood that software companies were developing systems to guarantee that video streams were confined to geographic regions. Experts say such tools will soon be refined to guarantee about 90 percent effectiveness.
The IOC has prohibited video of the games to be shown on the Web to protect the exclusivity of TV rights holders.
"I hope they find the technical solution to the geography, so that we can put everything on the Net," Pound said.
If a radical technology shift were to suddenly merge TV and Internet, existing TV contracts could be renegotiated with broadcasters.
Like many major sports leagues in Europe and the United States — but unlike the IOC — the NHL has separated Internet and broadcast rights.
Through 2008, the IOC has bundled Internet and broadcast rights, for which NBC has paid $3.5 billion for U.S. rights.
The committee will review pricing after 2004, Olympic officials said, seeking revenue-sharing arrangements as new media technology matures and the possibilities are more clearly defined.
However, the IOC will have to decide whether to sell TV and Internet rights jointly or not by 2003 for the next block of Olympics starting from 2010.
Ottavio Cinquanta, president of the International Skating Union, said he is "not against technology but some things are just practical."
"It is no secret the world of sport is currently sustained by two major sources: television and sponsors. For what? To deliver the best possible images, and in turn we give them the exclusive right to television to broadcast events based on skating," Cinquanta said. "If I were an Internet man, I would try to have good relations with television company."
The NFL receives $2.25 billion in TV rights annually for eight years. It has the sole video rights for league games and blocks all video from use on the Web, says NFL Executive Vice President Thomas Spock.
"We have given away no Internet rights," Spock told the conference.
However, NFL Films puts highlight shows on the Web and plans to put its video library on the Web.
Currently, each club in the NFL has its own Web site, and does not use video on them. But there are plans to unify NFL.com with teams' individual Web sites.
Pound said he can't envision the IOC making big money from the Internet in the short term.
"When I see the Internet, I don't see big dollar signs in the short run for the IOC," he said. "For the moment there really isn't a reliable revenue model."
But the TV model won't last forever, warned Stephen Jones, senior vice president of Coca-Cola, one the long-term official sponsors of the Olympics.
"We need to jointly design a new business model that leverages the new media to create new value to stay alive. It's that serious," Jones said. "That's why I'm here."