FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Sports management professor Stephen Dittmore, who was a staff member for the 1996 and 2002 Olympics, comments on the impact of social media on the Olympic Games: "These 'social' Olympics pose a number of challenges for the International Olympic Committee. On the one hand, the IOC needs to protect the marks of its sponsors who have paid millions of dollars for exclusive access to the Olympic Games. On the other hand, the IOC does not want to be perceived as limiting speech and freedom of expression. Right now, sentiment points to the IOC as doing the latter." "NBC is not doing anything it did not say it wouldn't do. It never advertised that the Olympics would be broadcast live. NBC is in the business of telling a narrative, and it does an excellent job of that.” Dittmore co-authored the revised edition of Sport Public Relations: Managing Stakeholder Communications released this year.