In later years, ABC and NBC would both display the Olympic games on their networks, but this wasn’t the case for the 1984 Olympics. ABC saw the Olympics as an event they could benefit from and therefore wanted to become the official network for the summer Olympics of 1984 that were held in Los Angeles.
On September 26th 1979, ABC purchases the rights to cover the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics for $225 million. Not only would they be airing the Los Angeles summer Olympics, but the Winter Olympics that would be held in Sarjevo would also be aired on ABC. The Winter Olympics was an additional cost besides the $225 million that they paid for the summer.
ABC was fortunate that NBC was not as interested in spending so much for the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles because it might have become a bidding war. On the other hand CBS was interested in being the Olympic channel, but they did not want to surpass the price that ABC was willing to pay.