MADELEINE BRAND, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Madeleine Brand.
It was late last night in Spokane, Washington when figure skater Sasha Cohen took a big step in her bid to compete in the Winter Olympics for a third time. She is 25 years old now. She placed second in the short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
Our regular sports commentator Stefan Fatsis joins us now to discuss that and other Olympic matters. Hi, Stefan.
STEFAN FATSIS: Hey, Madeleine.
BRAND: Well, women's figure skating seems to grab the headlines every four years. It's quite popular. This year seems to be no exception with Sasha Cohen, and well, she did pretty well last night for an old lady.
FATSIS: Yes she did. It was really sort of a big - take that - to all of these teenagers that are challenging her and also these doubting fans and reporters who love to create drama in figure skating. And shortly after winning the silver medal in Turin in 2006, Cohen stopped skating competitively. Then she began a comeback, but she had some injuries. She dropped out of events. And she talked very little, which only fed the media machine.
Then last night, she skated a clean, typically graceful performance. The crowd loved it. She's second behind a 16-year-old Mirai Nagasu and just ahead of a 17-year-old Rachael Flatt.
BRAND: So, pretty exciting for people to watch out here on the West Coast, but pretty difficult for you guys out there in the East.
FATSIS: Yeah, it was. Cohen didn't finish skating until around 2 a.m. Eastern Time this morning. And the scheduling was curious, given how much figure skating and Olympics broadcaster, NBC, are banking on Cohen for a competitive and an audience revival.
There just aren't that many stars right now in the sport, so much so that the United States qualified to send just two women instead of three to Vancouver next month. And the spots will be determined tomorrow when Cohen and the others skate their long programs and that will be in primetime on NBC from 9 to 11.
BRAND: Okay, let's talk about the business of the Olympics. NBC recently announced it will lose probably around $200 million on the Olympics. That seems like a pretty staggering figure, $200 million.
FATSIS: Yeah, plain and simple, NBC overbid for these games. They paid $820 million. They made this deal seven years ago. That was $207 million more than it had paid for the Turin games.
Now, NBC anticipated that advertising would continue to grow, the network would turn a profit, as it almost always has on the Olympics. Instead we get a recession, a collapse of some key advertising sectors like autos and finance, consolidation in beer and telecoms.
NBC will show 435 hours of coverage on broadcast and cable, plus another 400 hours online. And that does translate to more sales opportunities, but it can't make up for the decline in the advertising market, and the online sales market just isn't mature enough to make much of a difference.
BRAND: And then there's that little late-night problem. But anyway, you were at the last Winter Olympics and you got to know some of the athletes then. Any of them coming back for the Vancouver games?
FATSIS: Yeah, a bunch of them are. One guy that's coming back that I talked to for a while was Todd Lodwick. He's a Nordic combined skier - that's the ski-jumping and cross-country skiing. And I watched him cry at the end of what was supposed to be his last race after four Olympics. And, well, Lodwick decided to come out of retirement and now he's a favorite to become the first American ever to medal in Nordic combined.
One of my other favorite athletes was a woman named Sarah Konrad. She was 38 years old at the time, the first American to compete in two separate winter events, cross-country skiing and biathlon. She has retired, but she's going to be at the games as a volunteer working with athletes as part of the U.S. delegation.
BRAND: And Stefan, you always hear about how participating in the Olympics is life-changing for the athletes. Is that true?
FATSIS: I think it is. I spoke this morning with a luger named Samantha Retrosi, whom I wrote about in Turin, where she crashed just horribly in front of her terrified parents. Retrosi decided to retire shortly afterward, not because of the crash, but because she wanted to move on with her life.
Most people don't think about how all-consuming it is to be an Olympian. Retrosi was 11 when she started luging. Now she's 24. she's a college junior and aspiring journalist, and she's very clear that being an Olympian has made her more driven, focused and determined and more mature. She said that after you've been an Olympian, it's kind of hard to relate to the concerns of the typical undergraduate.
BRAND: Okay, thank you Stefan.
FATSIS: Thanks, Madeleine.
BRAND: Stefan Fatsis joins us most Fridays to talk about sports and the business of sports. And we'll have more Olympic stories on next week. Our co-host Melissa Block will be reporting from Lake Placid, New York. Athletes there are competing to represent the U.S. in the Winter Olympics' newest event, it's called the ski cross.