AT&T made a big splash back in March when it announced an exclusive deal for VOD content of USA gymnasts and other American athletes preparing for the Olympic Games. Now it appears that Verizon will have its own Olympic VOD content, if not quite the headlining programs available on U-verse. A friend and FiOS TV subscriber sent me the screenshot above this morning. I haven’t heard Verizon touting its Olympic material, but clearly it’s not ignoring the upcoming Games either.
Meanwhile, with all the noise around Web coverage of the Olympics, it seems there’s been very little discussion overall of VOD offerings. I saw a throw-away reference in a Multichannel News article in May that mentioned Sunflower Broadband will be offering free HD VOD content from Beijing. I haven’t seen anything written about plans from the major cable companies, however. Comcast had March Madness in HD VOD earlier this year. Too much to hope for a repeat around the Olympics?
UPDATE: Today’s issue of CableFAX (subscription only) notes that AT&T will offer VOD coverage of 10-15 Olympic events per day plus athlete features.
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