The 2002 Winter Games are over, but NBC Sports boss Dick Ebersol is already talking about coming back to cover future competitions at Utah's Olympic venues.
"I'm very happy," a tired but relaxed Ebersol said during an interview with the Deseret News in his 18th floor suite at the Salt Lake Hilton on Tuesday.
And no wonder. Ebersol is calling the Salt Lake Games "far and away, the most successful Olympics, summer or winter, in history."
The network that paid a record $545 million for the rights to broadcast the Salt Lake Games attracted almost 2 1/2-times as many viewers as normal for prime time.
Even though the ratings didn't quite reach the mark set by the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, Ebersol said the numbers have to be measured against today's typical network viewership.
The 149 percent increase over prime-time averages for the Salt Lake Games ? compared with a 130 percent boost for Lillehammer ? "speaks volumes for how much the American people fell in love with these Games," he said.
Ebersol seems smitten, too.
He's ready to bring crews back to cover events at the Utah Olympic Park near Park City and the speedskating oval in Kearns despite the traditionally low ratings for winter sports in non-Olympic years. "We'll be here each of the winters once or twice for many years to come because of the terrific facilities you have," Ebersol said. "If I can find a way to afford a (low) rating, we'll come here a lot."
The success of the Salt Lake Games wasn't always so sure because of the bribery scandal that surfaced in late 1998 and led to local, national and international investigations.
When Ebersol first heard about the scholarships given to the children of International Olympic Committee members, he said it "did not set off that many alarm bells. . . . That's been going on for years and years."
But after more details became public about the $1 million-plus in cash and gifts handed out by Salt Lake bidders, Ebersol was worried enough to come to Utah to meet with Gov. Mike Leavitt.
Ebersol said he told the governor that Utah needed to find "a businessman who had hopefully enormous charisma" to take over the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.
He said he was "very impressed" with the governor's choice of Mitt Romney, a Boston businessman who'd run against Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. Ebersol said all he knew about Romney at that time was what he'd read about the race.
Ebersol also said he lobbied congressional critics on behalf of former IOC leader Juan Antonio Samaranch, who ended up pushing through a series of reforms to the Swiss-based organization.
He said he didn't believe the Justice Department will be able to successfully prosecute former Utah Olympic leaders Tom Welch and Dave Johnson. Federal charges against the pair have been dismissed, but an appeal is pending. "I'm not making a moral judgment here, but how do you prove a quid pro quo when you don't know how the people who voted, voted?" Ebersol asked.
Utah, he said, will always be remembered for its warmth and "the collegial feeling which doesn't just go to how people were greeted going in and out of venues, it's how you all worked together, it's how you all recovered from a really painful time." The Games put the state on the map, Ebersol said. "And not just because there were hundreds of hours of television showing beautiful mountain slopes and a pretty downtown skyline at dark.
"I think the friendliness of this place really seeped through. It said, 'This was a nice place to come through' and I think people will remember that for a long time to come."
It was NBC, not Utah's Olympic leaders, who pushed for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to have a prominent role in the Games, performing at the opening ceremonies, Ebersol said.
"People who were Mormons would say, 'Are you sure? The image . . . ," he said. "I was always aware of the fact that one of the stories of these Games, particularly before they started, was going be well, 'Mormon Games this-or-that.' I never found it that way."
Although leaders of the LDS Church traveled to New York City six years ago to meet with Ebersol and other network officials, he said they've never asked for anything.
"They wanted to know if really we felt we were being treated well, was there any way we could be helped in dealing with the community and that they would always stand ready," Ebersol said.
President Gordon B. Hinckley and other LDS Church leaders visited Ebersol in his office at the network's broadcast facilities during the first week of the Games.
Ebersol said that while the delegation was thanking the network for its coverage of the Games, he was thinking about the impression the cigar smoke that lingered in his office was making.
"I said, 'Mr. President, I have smoked from time to time cigars.' He looked at me and he laughed. And he said, 'We've all smelled that stuff before, Dick.'
"I was very taken by all of them," Ebersol said before another meeting with church leaders Tuesday. "They couldn't be nicer."
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