After watching the Youtube ESPN with Phelps I was wondering about ESPN and the Olympic sports. Like it or not, ESPN drives sports interest in this country. They can make or break a sport - and if they don't have enough sports to show, they go and create one - like the X-Games.
But they will never promote the big Olympic sports like track, swimming and gymnastics - because NBC has the biggest prize in those sports - the Olympics. ESPN is not going to promote swimming for 3 years and then let NBC get extra ratings. On the flipside, NBC does not have a real sports network to show these sports - they can only afford to show the Olympics and maybe the trials.
What if ABC / ESPN would have had the Olympics for the last 20 years ?
Would we see the major meets in non-olympic years on ESPN 2 ? Would they not have sports center highlights of the US Nationals in track ? They could have their own women's channel and just show gymnastics and figure skating.
Not sure how much longer NBC has the Olympics locked up, but I think the IOC and USOC would be well served to give ABC and ESPN a run at this.
