Comcast Wanted To Spread The Wealth, Ebersol Didn't Agree?

After going through the various Dick Ebersol stories looking for common threads, there appears to be one that has to just send shivers down Tim Finchem's spine as the PGA Tour's "summer" TV deal negotiations near.

Jessica Vascellaro and Sam Schechner in the WSJ, with the most complete story on the shocking departure just weeks before the next Olympic rights fee heist. Ebersol's jousting with Comcast's Steve Burke over various isues drove him to leave, they suggest, despite protestations from Ebersol that it was simply a money issue.

Mr. Burke, who spent more than a decade at Comcast, has been pushing NBC to spread its sports programming across its broadcast network and cable channels, a shift from Mr. Ebersol's approach of creating big broadcast spectacles.

Clare Atkinson in the New York Post heard the same thing from her sources:

Indeed, there are signs that Ebersol and Burke disagreed when it came to spreading sports programming across NBCU's cable networks rather than concentrating it at the flagship NBC network.

Golf Channel has exclusive cable rights to the PGA Tour, but of course they can waive those if asked to accommodate NBC's Versus or whatever channel they might want to stick the golf on.

There is also the potential impact this has on the 2016 Olympic golf movement since (A) NBC could still get the Games and put the coverage on Golf Channel as expected, and (B) no one cares because Olympic golf's mundane format and lack of a team component means the golf will be buried on some obscure channel in the middle of the night.