Olympics on ABC - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Olympics on ABC was the branding for Olympic Games

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

coverage which aired in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

on the broadcast network

Broadcast network

A broadcast network is an organization, such as a corporation or other voluntary association, that provides live television or recorded content, such as movies, newscasts, sports, Public affairs programming, and other television programs for broadcast over a group of radio stations or television...

ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

. ABC first televised the Winter Olympic Games in 1964

1964 Winter Olympics

The 1964 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IX Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in Innsbruck, Austria, from January 29 to February 9, 1964...

. ABC first televised the Summer Olympic Games in 1968

1968 Summer Olympics

The 1968 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Mexico City, Mexico in October 1968. The 1968 Games were the first Olympic Games hosted by a developing country, and the first Games hosted by a Spanish-speaking country...

. ABC last televised the Summer Olympics in 1984

1984 Summer Olympics

The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1984...

and Winter Olympics in 1988

1988 Winter Olympics

The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event celebrated in and around Calgary, Alberta, Canada from 13 to 28 February 1988. The host was selected in 1981 after having beat Falun, Sweden and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy...

1960s

While CBS

Olympics on CBS

The Olympics on CBS was a sports telecast that aired on CBS Sports. The last airing of the telecast was for the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano.-1960s coverage:...

aired both the 1960 Winter

1960 Winter Olympics

The 1960 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VIII Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event held between February 18 and 28, 1960 in Squaw Valley, California, United States. In 1955 at the 50th IOC meeting, the organizing committee made the surprise choice to award Squaw Valley as...

and Summer Games

1960 Summer Olympics

The 1960 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held from August 25 to September 11, 1960 in Rome, Italy...

(marking the first time that the Olympics were broadcast on American television), by 1964, a different network showed the Winter Games

1964 Winter Olympics

The 1964 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IX Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in Innsbruck, Austria, from January 29 to February 9, 1964...

: ABC

American Broadcasting Company

. Roone Arledge

Roone Arledge

Roone Pickney Arledge, Jr. was an American sports broadcasting pioneer who was chairman of ABC News from 1977 until several years before his death, and a key part of the company's rise to competition with the two other main television networks, NBC and CBS, in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.-Early...

won broadcast rights for his network and began a relationship with the "five rings" that would last over two decades. The program used many of the same production staff from ABC's Wide World of Sports, as well as the same host, Jim McKay

Jim McKay

James Kenneth McManus , better known by his professional name of Jim McKay, was an American television sports journalist....

, who moved to ABC from CBS in 1961. In 1968, ABC showed both the Winter Games

1968 Winter Olympics

The 1968 Winter Olympics, officially known as the X Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1968 in Grenoble, France and opened on 6 February. Thirty-seven countries participated...

and the Summer Games

1968 Summer Olympics

.

The 1964 Winter Games were in Innsbruck, Austria, and coverage was taped and flown by plane back to the United States. All of it was in black-and-white, but with most Winter Olympic events in the morning (local time), most TV coverage aired the day the events were held.

By 1968, ABC was broadcasting the Olympics in full color, and satellites made possible live coverage of several events at the Winter Games in Grenoble, France and of nearly all of the network's coverage of the Summer Games in Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

.

Highlighting the 1968 Winter Games was a dramatic sweep in men's alpine skiing by Frenchman Jean-Claude Killy

Jean-Claude Killy

Jean-Claude Killy was an alpine ski racer, who dominated the sport in the late 1960s. He was a triple Olympic champion, winning the three alpine events at the 1968 Winter Olympics, becoming the most successful athlete there...

, while the major highlight of the Summer Games was a world-record long jump by Bob Beamon

Bob Beamon

Robert "Bob" Beamon is an American former track and field athlete, best known for his world record in the long jump at the Mexico Olympics in 1968, which remained the world record for almost 23 years until it was broken in 1991 by Mike Powell. This is the second longest holding of this record, as...

of the United States, which happened to air live in the U.S.

Coverage of the 1972 Munich massacre

In 1972, NBC showed the Winter Games

1972 Winter Olympics

The 1972 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XI Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated from February 3 to February 13, 1972 in Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan...

from Sapporo, Japan, then ABC returned to carry the Summer Games

1972 Summer Olympics

The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from August 26 to September 11, 1972....

in Munich, Germany. It was during the Summer Games that Palestinian terrorists attacked the Olympic Village and killed 11 Israeli athletes

Munich massacre

The Munich massacre is an informal name for events that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Bavaria in southern West Germany, when members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian group Black September. Members of Black September...

. Although Chris Schenkel

Chris Schenkel

Christopher Eugene "Chris" Schenkel was an American sportscaster. Over the course of five decades he called play-by-play for numerous sports on television and radio, becoming known for his smooth delivery and baritone voice.-Early life and career:Schenkel began his broadcasting career at radio...

was the actual host of the Games that year, Arledge assigned the story to McKay largely because he was a local news anchor in Baltimore, Maryland prior to joining CBS (and later ABC). McKay was joined on set by ABC news correspondent (and former and future evening news anchor) Peter Jennings

Peter Jennings

Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings, CM was a Canadian American journalist and news anchor. He was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983 until his death in 2005 of complications from lung cancer...

, and coverage continued for many hours until the outcome was known. McKay later won an Emmy Award for his coverage.

1976-1988

By the time the 1976 edition

1976 Winter Olympics

The 1976 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XII Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated February 4–15, 1976 in Innsbruck, Austria...

came around, McKay was now installed at the host, a role he would play throughout the 1970s and '80s. ABC aired the 1980 Winter Olympics

1980 Winter Olympics

The 1980 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIII Olympic Winter Games, was a multi-sport event which was celebrated from 13 February through 24 February 1980 in Lake Placid, New York, United States of America. This was the second time the Upstate New York village hosted the Games, after 1932...

, both the 1984 Winter

1984 Winter Olympics

The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated from 8–19 February 1984 in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Other candidate cities were Sapporo, Japan; and Gothenburg, Sweden...

and Summer Games

1984 Summer Olympics

The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1984...

, and the 1988 Winter Olympics

1988 Winter Olympics

.

Chuck Mangione

Chuck Mangione

Charles Frank "Chuck" Mangione is an American flugelhorn player and composer who achieved international success in 1977 with his jazz-pop single, "Feels So Good." Mangione has released more than thirty albums since 1960.-Early life and career:...

's instrumental song "Give It All You Got

Give It All You Got

"Give It All You Got" is an instrumental song from 1980 by the American flugelhorn player Chuck Mangione. It was written and produced by Mangione, and can be found on his 1979 album Fun and Games....

" was originally featured as the official theme of the 1980 Winter Olympics

1980 Winter Olympics

, held in Lake Placid

Lake Placid, New York

Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a population of 2,638....

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. ABC had used Mangione's recordings four years earlier during their coverage of the 1976 Summer Olympics

1976 Summer Olympics

The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and...

, and then-ABC Sports president Roone Arledge

Roone Arledge

asked the musician to create the theme song for the Winter games. Mangione also performed the song live at the Closing Ceremonies on February 24.

The 1980 Winter Olympics was perhaps most notable for the "Miracle on Ice

Miracle on Ice

The "Miracle on Ice" is the name in American popular culture for a medal-round men's ice hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York, on Friday, February 22...

". The "Miracle on Ice" was a medal-round men's ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

game Lake Placid

Lake Placid, New York

Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a population of 2,638....

, New York

New York

, on February 22. The United States team, made up of amateur

Amateur

An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....

and collegiate players and led by coach Herb Brooks

Herb Brooks

Herbert Paul Brooks, Jr. was an American ice hockey player and coach. He notably coached the United States' men's hockey team to a 4-3 upset of the heavily favored Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York on February 22, 1980...

, defeated the Soviet team, which was considered the best hockey team in the world. The rest of the United States (except those who watched the game live on Canadian television) had to wait to see the game, as ABC decided to broadcast the late-afternoon game on tape delay in prime time. Sportscaster Al Michaels

Al Michaels

Alan Richard "Al" Michaels is an American television sportscaster. Now employed by NBC Sports after nearly three decades with ABC Sports, Michaels is one of the most prominent members of his profession...

, who was calling the game on ABC along with former Montreal Canadiens

Montreal Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens are a professional ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . The club is officially known as ...

goalie Ken Dryden

Ken Dryden

Kenneth Wayne Dryden, PC, is a Canadian politician, lawyer, businessman, author, and former NHL goaltender. Dryden is married with two children and four grandchildren and is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame...

, picked up on the countdown in his broadcast, and delivered his famous call:

Since the 1988 Winter Games

After that, the network, at the insistence of new owner Capital Cities Communications

Capital Cities Communications

Capital Cities redirects here. For the article about the seat of a government, see Capital .Capital Cities Communications was an American media company best known for its surprise purchase of the much larger American Broadcasting Company in 1985...

(much to the chagrin of Roone Arledge's successor at ABC Sports, Dennis Swanson), opted not to bid for the rights to show any future Games. Subsequently, The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...

acquired Capital Cities-ABC in 1995 and began the process of putting more effort into the branding of ABC's sports channel ESPN

ESPN

Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

than of ABC Sports

ESPN on ABC

ESPN on ABC is the brand used for sports programming on the ABC television network. Officially the broadcast network retains its own sports division; however, for all practical purposes, ABC's sports division has been merged with ESPN, a sports cable network majority-owned by ABC's parent, The...

itself.

In August 2008, ESPN

ESPN

, which now holds control of ABC's sports division (now known as ESPN on ABC

ESPN on ABC

), asserted that they would make a serious bid for the 2014

2014 Winter Olympics

The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games, or the 22nd Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event scheduled to be celebrated from 7 to 23 February 2014, in Sochi, Russia with some events held in the resort town of Krasnaya Polyana. Both the Olympic and...

games in Sochi, Russia and the 2016

2016 Summer Olympics

The 2016 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, are a major international multi-sport event to be celebrated in the tradition of the Olympic Games, as governed by the International Olympic Committee...

games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil..

It is not known if the ESPN bid would make those two Olympics cable-exclusive, or if the major events of those two Olympics would continue to be shown on broadcast television, as they have been since 1960.

Hours of coverage

Year	Host	Hours of Coverage	Rights Fee
1964 Winter 1964 Winter Olympics The 1964 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IX Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in Innsbruck, Austria, from January 29 to February 9, 1964...	Innsbruck, Austria	17.5	$597,000
1968 Winter 1968 Winter Olympics The 1968 Winter Olympics, officially known as the X Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1968 in Grenoble, France and opened on 6 February. Thirty-seven countries participated...	Grenoble, France	27	$2,500,000
1968 Summer 1968 Summer Olympics The 1968 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Mexico City, Mexico in October 1968. The 1968 Games were the first Olympic Games hosted by a developing country, and the first Games hosted by a Spanish-speaking country...	Mexico City, Mexico	43.75	$4,500,000
1972 Summer 1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from August 26 to September 11, 1972....	Munich, Germany	62.75	$7,500,000
1976 Winter 1976 Winter Olympics The 1976 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XII Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated February 4–15, 1976 in Innsbruck, Austria...	Innsbruck, Austria	43.5	$10,000,000
1976 Summer 1976 Summer Olympics The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and...	Montreal, Canada	76.5	$25,000,000
1980 Winter 1980 Winter Olympics The 1980 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIII Olympic Winter Games, was a multi-sport event which was celebrated from 13 February through 24 February 1980 in Lake Placid, New York, United States of America. This was the second time the Upstate New York village hosted the Games, after 1932...	Lake Placid, New York Lake Placid, New York Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a population of 2,638....	53.25	$15,500,000
1984 Winter 1984 Winter Olympics The 1984 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIV Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated from 8–19 February 1984 in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Other candidate cities were Sapporo, Japan; and Gothenburg, Sweden...	Sarajevo Sarajevo Sarajevo \|Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans.... , Yugoslavia Yugoslavia Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....	63	$91,500,000
1984 Summer 1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1984...	Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, California Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...	180	$225,000,000
1988 Winter 1988 Winter Olympics The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event celebrated in and around Calgary, Alberta, Canada from 13 to 28 February 1988. The host was selected in 1981 after having beat Falun, Sweden and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy...	Calgary, Canada	94.5	$309,000,000

1960s

Coverage of the 1972 Munich massacre

1976-1988

Since the 1988 Winter Games

Hours of coverage

See also