All the Way to 2032, Come What May

Eighteen years ago, there was no certainty that we would be watching sports and movies on little mobile screens or that outfits like Netflix would engage us by streaming series a season at a time.

How, then, can anyone predict how we will consume video in 18 years with the rapid evolution -- alongside the occasional revolution -- occurring in technology? The answer is -- if you’re NBC Universal and the International Olympic Committee -- you don’t.

Not when you’re making a deal for NBC to carry in the United States the six Olympic Games from 2022 to 2032 on its television and digital platforms, and whatever new technology develops in the next two decades. Their $7.75 billion deal, with a $100 million signing bonus, was announced.

“Basically, what you do, is you say that if circumstances changes, then various things can happen,” Jim Clark, a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel and the lead lawyer representing NBC at the talks with the International Olympic Committee, said by telephone. “You know things can change. And the agreement takes into account that new technologies might have to be taken into account.”

So let’s say that an amazing technology, with enormous profit potential, breaks through in 2027 or 2028. Would the IOC reopen talks and seek additional money from NBC? No, said Steve Burke, the chief executive of NBC Universal.

“If the way the world changes and the way you make money changes,” Burke said in an email, “we are allowed to change and there will never be an added fee.” That is a great benefit of agreeing in 2014 to put down a huge sum of money from 2022 to 2032, and the fruit of two decades of trust between NBC and the IOC, which relies heavily on the network’s cash.