This won't come in the form of TV revenue, because the network admitted before the first ski was strapped on that it would lose more than $200 million producing the Games for television.

NBC is looking for first place in an overall prestigious viewing race.

Through Saturday night, the four NBC-TV platforms had reached 185 million viewers in total coverage.

If the exciting, overtime U.S.-Canada gold medal hockey game and the closing ceremony scored with viewers, coverage should top NBC's 2002 total audience from Salt Lake City (187 million).

The all-time leader is CBS, which aired the 1994 Lillehammer Games that attracted 204 million viewers.

NBC should get the silver audience award.

Shifting to prime-time coverage, Salt Lake City (KSL) should win the national battle among NBC stations for largest shares of local audience, with Denver's 9News taking second, followed by Milwaukee, Seattle and Minneapolis.

Through 16 nights, KSL shows a 37 audience share, compared to a 35 figure on 9News.

(An audience share is a percentage of television households in a given area, watching television and tuned in to a particular program.)

For some inexplicable reason, 9News, which ranked among the top three NBC stations throughout coverage, slipped to ninth Saturday night.

Predictably, Mountain time zone stations had the highest audience shares, followed in order by Central, Pacific and Eastern zones.

New York and Los Angeles, the nation's two largest television markets, were not among the top 25 in prime- time audience shares — figures that must make NBC corporate executives grind their teeth.

Keep in mind that New York's prime-time coverage was live while L.A.'s was on a three-hour delay. Chicago, the third-largest market, tied for 23rd in prime-time ratings.

As the Olympic organization looks to the future, financial stories could overshadow sports-page news.

NBC, which paid $820 million for Vancouver, will shell out $1.18 billion for the London Games.

So what sort of losses is NBC looking for when the Olympic flame goes out in London?

The London and Vancouver deals were made in 2003, when the U.S. and world economies were much brighter.

Bidding for broadcasting rights for the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia (2014) and the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro (2016) will get underway soon under cloudy financial skies.

Even with its financial losses, NBC still has Olympics fever. ESPN, indicating it will bid on both, is looking at live rather than tape-delayed coverage.

Let the boardroom games begin.