'A passion for the olympics'.(Top of the Week)(NBC Sports & Olympics signs chairman Dick Ebersol to a nine-year contract extension)(Brief Article)

Broadcasting & Cable, December, 2003 by McClellan, Steve

Dick Ebersol, chairman, NBC Sports & Olympics, has signed a nine-year contract extension that will keep him in his current post through 2012, when he'll turn 65. During that period, the network is scheduled to air five more Olympic games, the rights to which were acquired in unprecedented multi-Olympic packages that he engineered.

Under the new deal, he'll continue to report to NBC Chairman Bob Wright. Ebersol was named president of NBC Sports in 1989 and elevated to his current post in June 1998. In a statement, Wright credited Ebersol with building the Olympics into "the most valuable franchise in television." Ebersol's "guidance over the years has been invaluable to me personally and to every division of the company," he said, "and we look forward to...

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