Golf's Most Powerful Man Steps Down: Ebersol Leaving NBC

Richard Sandomir with the news that Dick Ebersol, who locked NBC into deals to televise the PGA Tour and USGA championships and who held more clout than ever after the NBC-Comcast merger added Golf Channel to the mix, is leaving at the end of June to spend more time doing something besides running NBC Sports. And to throw the upcoming Olympic and PGA Tour negotiations into flux.

Ebersol’s departure raises immediate questions about whether Comcast will be less aggressive about acquiring the rights to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, which will be negotiated in Lausanne, Switzerland, in June. He said that he would not attend the auction, at which ESPN and Fox are expected to be bidders, and that he intended to stay at NBC until the end of June.

Earlier this year Comcast named Ebersol to run the NBC Sports Group, which consists of NBC Sports, the Golf Channel, Versus and Comcast’s regional sports networks. His first major acquisition under the new regime was to retain National Hockey League rights for NBC and Versus for $1.9 billion over 10 years.