The point is that they are pursuing short-term profit and sacrificing customer satisfaction. That's a terrible way to run a company.
Not giving something to someone for free just because they demand that they should have it is not sacrificing customer satisfaction.
In fact, broadcasting the Olympics is a massive _LONG_ term bet since NBC loses tons of money on the games themselves.
If you are not a cable subscriber (i.e. over-the-air broadcast receiver), you are NBC's product only, and not their customer.