Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said he expects the Tokyo Olympics to happen in July as expected.
Responding to a question on Comcast’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday, Roberts said. “I believe there will be an Olympics . . . that’s our best intel at this time.”
There have been reports raising questions about whether Japan will be able to hold the games because of spiking COVID-19 infection rates. The games were postponed from last year because of the pandemic.
Comcast has the TV rights to carry the games in the U.S.
Roberts said that he believed there were a number of ways the host country could hold the event safely, possibly by limiting the number of people who attend the events.
“We see it as a TV event and it would be an amazing way for the world to come back together after what we’ve been through,” Roberts said, noting that the company has the rights to another Olympic games in Beijing just around the corner.
Jeff Shell, CEO of Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit, added that advertisers also are optimistic that the Japan games will be held.
“We continue to pace up over where we were a year ago,” Shell said. That gap has grown ad advertiser have jumped in to buy.”
