While the world’s eyes will soon turn to the Winter Games in South Korea, the network that produces the television for those eyes won’t be hosting its VIPs in PyeongChang.
Instead, NBC’s wine-and-dine hospitality program for heavy-hitting sponsors will be held in Jackson Hole. It’s the first time the network has not hosted Olympic hospitality in the host country. (At the 2004 Summer Olympics, in Athens, the network held hospitality events in Bermuda, as well as the host country of Greece.)
The network insists that the decision to move hospitality to Wyoming was based on hotel room availability, not political tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Three years ago, when organizers began assessing the lodging needs of athletes, volunteers, media and nearly 2,000 NBC workers, NBC quickly realized accommodations around the rural host city of PyeongChang would be limited — especially for a television network trying to impress high-rollers with a rich array of activities, dining and luxury lodging.
“We did not want to further increase our accommodation request,” NBC Sports spokesman Christopher McCloskey said in an emailed statement.
So the network started shopping for a new location. With the Winter Olympics’ biggest events — such as alpine slalom, and snowboard and ski halfpipe — beginning around 10 to 11 a.m. in South Korea, viewers in the U.S. can watch the events live in prime time, around 6 to 7 p.m., at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. Add in Jackson’s luxury lodges and eateries, including the slopeside Four Seasons and mountaintop Piste Mountain Bistro, as well as the region’s bounty of winter fun — and the location quickly drew NBC’s eye.
The network, which has produced the Olympics since the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, reserved the 500-seat Center for the Arts venue for Olympic-themed gatherings for the VIPs, many of whom will be traveling straight from the Super Bowl in Minneapolis to the airport near Jackson.
“They’ve got quite a few events planned. Should be fun,” said Michael Dowda, the venue’s operations director.
“We chose Jackson Hole because we wanted a spectacular, luxury winter resort with consistent skiing conditions that could accommodate the dining and entertainment needs of our client program,” the statement from McCloskey says. “Another draw was that Jackson Hole has been visited less frequently by our clients, making it an even more special experience for them.”
NBC’s hospitality shift comes as South Korea endures listless sales of Olympic event tickets.
At the end of December, PyeongChang organizers said they had sold about 655,000 of the 1.07 million tickets that organizers had set as a goal, noting that sales had been “sluggish.”
In November, Gian-Franco Kasper, the 20-year president of the International Ski Federation and International Olympic Committee board member, told a French news agency that Europeans might not be traveling to PyeongChang as they have for previous Winter Olympics, citing political tensions with North Korea.
“I will tell you the truth: I do not expect too many spectators at the 2018 PyeongChang Games,” Kasper told Francs Jeux. “The current political crisis in the region does not encourage Europeans to travel to South Korea.”
Telluride Ski & Golf Resort was not approached by NBC to discuss hosting the network’s Olympic VIPs. The network submitted a group lodging proposal to Vail and Breckenridge in late 2014 but canceled the request in June 2015, according to a sales director at Vail Resorts.
Aspen Snowmass, one of Colorado’s few major resorts capable of hosting a large booking in the middle of February, did not court NBC.
“Never heard anything about it,” said Bill Tomcich, whose Stay Aspen Snowmass agency books lodging in the largest single collection of properties in the Colorado hills.
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort booked the network’s Olympic party in 2015. Resort spokeswoman Anna Cole said the privately owned ski area was able to provide a long list of activities and luxury slopeside properties that appealed to the network.
“It’s not our largest group for the mountain side of things this year, but it is a significant group and an important group for us,” Cole said. “We were pleased to get their business, and it’s a real testament to our mountain, our facilities and the community we live in. We are happy that we can help in our own little way over here in Jackson Hole.”
