NBC Sports

NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast, that is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its dedicated national sports networking cables. Formerly operating as "a service of NBC News", it broadcasts a diverse array of sports events, including the French Open, the IndyCar Series, NASCAR, the National Football League (NFL), the National Hockey League (NHL), Notre Dame Fighting Irish college football, the Olympic Games, professional golf, Premier League soccer, the Tour de France and Thoroughbred racing, among others. Other programming from outside producers – such as coverage of the Ironman Triathlon – is also presented on the network through NBC Sports. With Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2011, its own cable sports networks were aligned with NBC Sports into a part of the division known as the NBC Sports Group.

For the cable channel, see NBCSN.

NBC Sports
LaunchedNovember 8, 1946 (1946-11-08) by WNBC in New York City
Division ofNBC
Country of originUnited States
Key peoplePete Bevacqua (chairman, NBC Sports Group)
HeadquartersStamford, Connecticut
Major broadcasting contracts
Sister networkNBCSN
NBC Sports Gold
Official websitenbcsports.com

History

Early years
Main article: History of NBC Sports

2000s

In 2000, NBC declined to renew its broadcast agreement with Major League Baseball. In 2002, it was additionally outbid by ESPN and ABC for the National Basketball Association's new broadcast contract, ending the league's twelve-year run on NBC.

Former logo for NBC Sports, used from 1989 to 2011.

During this era, NBC experimented with broadcasting emerging sports. In 2001, the network partnered with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) to establish the XFL – a new football league which introduced modified rules and debuted to tremendous, but short-lived fanfare, only lasting one season (NBC shared broadcast rights to the league's games, which were mainly held on Saturday nights, with UPN). In 2003, NBC obtained the broadcast rights and a minority interest in the Arena Football League. The network televised weekly games on a regional basis, as well as the entire playoffs. The deal lasted four years, after which the league and NBC parted ways.

Beginning with the 1999 NASCAR Winston Cup Series, NBC began its foray into NASCAR. NASCAR on NBC, along with NASCAR on Fox and NASCAR on TNT, obtained the broadcast rights of the top two series – the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series – in a six-year deal, beginning in 2001. NBC televised the second half of the season and alternated coverage of the Daytona 500 with Fox. In December 2005, NBC announced that it would not renew its agreement with NASCAR. In 2001, NBC obtained the broadcast rights to horse racing's Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing in a five-year deal.

In 2004, NBC reached a broadcast agreement with the National Hockey League (NHL). The revenue-sharing deal called for the two sides to split advertising revenue after the network recouped the expenses. Games were supposed to begin airing on the network during the 2004–05 season, however a league 2004–05 NHL lockout that resulted in the cancellation of that season delayed the start of the contract until the second half of the 2005–06 NHL season. NBC televised regular season games at first on Saturday afternoons before moving the telecast to Sundays, Saturday and Sunday afternoon playoff games, and up to five games of the Stanley Cup. Additionally in 2008, NBC broadcast the 2008 NHL Winter Classic, an outdoor NHL game played on New Year's Day at Ralph Wilson Stadium, a success in attendance and television ratings. The following year's Winter Classic would become the most-watched regular season game in 34 years.[1] In addition to this regular season success, Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup Final was watched by an average of 8 million viewers, the highest ratings for an NHL game in 36 years.[2]

The NFL also returned to NBC in 2006 after an eight-year hiatus, broadcasting the league's new flagship Sunday Night Football game, along with select postseason games and Super Bowls XLIII, XLVI, XLIX, LII and LVI.

NBC Sports Group
Main article: NBC Sports Group

In January 2011, Comcast finalized its acquisition of a majority share in NBC Universal. As a result of the merger, the operations of Comcast's existing sports networks, such as Golf Channel and NBCSN, were merged into an entity known as the NBC Sports Group. NBC Sports' senior vice president Mike McCarley additionally became Golf Channel's new head.[3] NBC Sports' golf production unit was merged with Golf Channel, along with NBC's on-air staff, with that unit rebranding under the banner "Golf Channel on NBC", while Versus was reformatted toward a more mainstream audience, renamed the NBC Sports Network and eventually rebranded as NBCSN.[4]

The merger also helped influence an extension of NBC Sports' contract with the NHL; the 10-year deal – valued at close to $2 billion, unified the cable and broadcast television rights to the league and introduced a new "Black Friday" Thanksgiving Showdown game on NBC, along with national coverage for every game in the Stanley Cup playoffs.[5] On July 3, 2011, ESPN obtained the exclusive broadcast rights to The Championships, Wimbledon in a 12-year deal, ending NBC's television relationship with The Championships after 42 years.[6]

From 2012 until 2015, Major League Soccer games were shown on NBC and the NBC Sports Network. This included the broadcast of two regular season games, two playoff games, and two national team matches on NBC and 38 regular season games, three playoff games, and two national team matches on NBC Sports Network.[7] Since the 2013–14 season NBC Sports has also held the rights to televise Premier League soccer in English (primarily on NBCSN) and Spanish (on Telemundo and Universo), through a $250 million deal, replacing ESPN and Fox Soccer as the league's U.S. broadcasters.[8]

NBC Sports held broadcast rights to the Formula One (formerly held by Speed and Fox Sports) from 2013 until 2017. The majority of its coverage (including much of the season, along with qualifying and practice sessions) aired on NBCSN, while NBC aired the Monaco Grand Prix, Canadian Grand Prix and the final two races of the season, which in the first year of the deal included the United States Grand Prix. All races were also streamed online and through the NBC Sports Live Extra mobile app.[9][10][11] They lost the broadcast rights to ESPN beginning from the 2018 season.[12][13]

On March 18, 2013, nearly all of the operations for NBC Sports and NBCSN began to be based out of a purpose-built facility in Stamford, Connecticut. The move was made mainly to take advantage of tax credits given by the state of Connecticut, which NBC has taken advantage of previously with the tabloid talk shows of its NBCUniversal Television Distribution.[14] Only Football Night in America remained in New York City, at NBC Studios, until September 7, 2014, when production of that program also moved to Stamford.

NASCAR returned to NBC Sports properties in 2015 under a ten-year deal, with NBC once again airing the second half of the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series seasons. While no specific financial details were disclosed, NBC reportedly paid 50% more than ESPN and TNT (who took over the portion of the season previously held by NBC) combined under the previous deal.[15][16]

In May 2015, NBCUniversal announced the formation of NBC Deportes (later renamed Telemundo Deportes), which serves as the Spanish language branch of NBC Sports for Telemundo and NBC Universo.[17]

On June 7, 2015, NBC Sports and The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews agreed to a twelve-year deal to televise The Open Championship, Senior Open Championship, and Women's British Open on NBC and Golf Channel, beginning in 2017.[18] The move came a year after NBC lost the rights to USGA tournaments to Fox Sports but fox sports opted out after the 5th year of the deal therefore nbc picked up the rights for the remainder of the deal(which the deal lasts for 12 years) The R&A's deal with ESPN had been through 2017, but the broadcaster opted out of the final year of their agreement.[19]

Universal Sports ceased operations in November 2015. NBCUniversal acquired the rights to the content that was previously held by Universal Sports Network. Much of the programming moved to Olympic Channel, with the rest of the programming moving to NBCSN and NBC Sports Live Extra.[20]

From 2016 until 2018, NBC Sports held the rights to Premiership Rugby, the top division of English rugby union, through a three-year deal. The contract included up to 24 regularly-scheduled games on NBCSN per-season, and up to 50 streaming. Its first live match was on March 12, 2016, when London Irish hosted Saracens F.C. at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey.[21]

In June 2016, the group launched NBC Sports Gold, a subscription-based over-the-top streaming service. It debuted with a Cycling Pass, featuring several UCI road cycling races. In April 2017, a Track and Field Pass was launched, featuring World Athletics and USA Track & Field meets, a Rugby Pass featuring the Premiership Rugby, and a Pro Motocross Pass featuring the AMA Motocross Championship.[22][23] A Premier League Pass was added in June 2017.

In early 2018, it was announced that NBC Sports would renew its contract with the IndyCar Series (continuing a relationship with NBCSN which began in 2009 as Versus),[24] through 2021, and acquire the broadcast television rights previously held by ESPN on ABC. NBC televises eight races per-season since 2019, including the series flagship Indianapolis 500, with the remaining races airing on NBCSN as before. An IndyCar package is also offered through NBC Sports Gold.[25][26] Shortly after, NBC announced a six-year agreement with the International Motor Sports Association beginning 2019, including the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with the majority of coverage on NBCSN.[27]

On June 29, 2020, NBC re-acquired the rights of the USGA Championships (U.S. Open, U.S. Women's Open, U.S. Amateur, U.S. Women's Amateur) from FOX Sports beginning with the 2020 U.S. Open. Under the arrangement of the original 12 year deal, NBC would carry the event until 2026 airing the later rounds while The Golf Channel would broadcast the early rounds in their entirety. [28]

Olympics
Main article: NBC Olympic broadcasts

In 1964, NBC televised the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo; in 1972, NBC televised the 1972 Winter Olympics for the first time. 1980 would prove to be a stinging disappointment for the network; after contentious negotiations, NBC won the broadcast rights to the 1980 Summer Olympics. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the United States and 64 other countries boycotted the event. NBC substantially scaled back its coverage and lost heavily in advertising revenue. In 1988, NBC televised the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. Since then, it has branded itself as "America's Olympic Network", televising every Summer Olympic Games since the Seoul event, as well as every Winter Olympic Games since 2002 Winter Olympics. In total, NBC has aired 13 Summer and Winter Olympics, the most by any one U.S. network. The Olympic Games have also become an integral part of the network, despite some recurring controversy over its method of broadcast delaying events in part to take advantage of a wider national audience in prime time.

In 1998, Ebersol was named president of NBC Sports and Olympics.

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver were watched by a total of 190 million viewers,[29] including 27.6 million viewers of the gold medal game in men's hockey.[30]

During the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, over 500 hours of the games were broadcast across five NBC-owned television channels (NBC, NBCSN, CNBC, MSNBC and USA Network), with 1,000 hours being streamed digitally.[31] In January, the company announced some exclusive digital-only streaming of the 2014 Olympics via the NBCOlympics.com website and the NBC Sports Live Extra app for Android and iOS, including exclusive content such as Gold Zone, Olympic Ice and NBC's Olympic News Desk.[32]

Branding

With the premiere of Sunday Night Football, NBCUniversal hired Troika Design Group to design an overall visual identity for its coverage, including branding, on-air graphics, and other visual elements.[33]

Concurrent with the relaunch of Versus as NBC Sports Network on January 2, 2012, and the 2012 NHL Winter Classic, NBC Sports also launched a comprehensive redesign of its branding, including a new on-air graphics design built around the NBC peacock, and an updated logo for the division as a whole (replacing a logo that had been in use since 1989). The new design was also intended to be modular, allowing it to be expanded for use in larger events across multiple networks (such as the Super Bowl and the Olympic Games).[34] A refreshed design for on-air graphics was introduced on January 1, 2015 (in time for the 2015 NHL Winter Classic and NFL playoffs), with a cleaner and brighter visual appearance.[35]

NBC debuted a new graphics package specifically for Sunday Night Football during Super Bowl LII. NBC producer Fred Gaudelli stated that the network wanted the Sunday night games to have a more distinctive presentation to set them apart from other games.[36] NBC similarly diverged for its Premier League coverage in 2019, adopting elements of its new British sibling Sky Sports.[37]

Programs throughout the years

Current programs
Motorsport
Olympic sports
Rugby
Other

Former programs

Notable personalities
Liam McHugh, NBC Sports' primary studio and Olympics host
NBC Sunday Night Football play-by-play announcer Al Michaels

Play-by-play

Analysts

Reporters

Studio hosts

Studio analysts

Play-by-play

Analysts

Reporters

Studio hosts

Studio analyst

Telemundo personalities

Presidents and chairmen

Main competitors

References
  1. "'Winter Classic" Most Viewed Regular Season NHL Game in 34 Years,'". TV by the Numbers. January 13, 2009.
  2. "Game 7 most watched in 36 years". NHL.com. NHL Enterprises, LP. June 15, 2009. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
  3. Mike Reynolds. "McCarley To Head Golf Channel, Davis Out at Versus in NBC Sports Group Reorg: Sources". Multichannel News. Retrieved February 2, 2011.
  4. Jim Williams (February 2011). "Jim Williams: Gold coverage has new look". The Washington Examiner.
  5. "NHL reaches new television deal to remain on NBC, Versus". CNNSI. Time Warner. Associated Press. April 19, 2011. Retrieved April 19, 2011.
  6. "ESPN acquires exclusive Wimbledon rights". ESPNLosAngeles.com. ESPN. July 5, 2011. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
  7. "MLS and NBC Sports announce new TV deal". The New York Times (Goal Blogs). August 10, 2011. Retrieved August 10, 2011.
  8. "NBC wins $250m rights to broadcast English Premier League in US". The Guardian. London. Associated Press. October 29, 2012. Retrieved October 29, 2012.
  9. Jenna Fryer (October 14, 2012). "NBC Sports Group gets US rights to Formula One". The Huffington Post. AOL. Associated Press.
  10. "SPEED coverage of Formula One comes to an end in 2012". Motorsport.com. Retrieved October 13, 2012.
  11. "Formula 1 lands four-year deal with NBC". Racer. Archived from the original on October 16, 2012. Retrieved October 16, 2012.
  12. "F1 Rights Move From NBC To ESPN In New Multiyear Rights Deal". SportBusinessDaily.com. Retrieved October 27, 2017.
  13. "ESPN secures U.S. Formula One rights from 2018". ESPN. Retrieved October 27, 2017.
  14. Michael Heistand (March 13, 2013). "NBC to air MLS marathon in new digs". USA Today. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
  15. "NBC wins NASCAR TV rights, signs 10-year deal to replace ESPN, Turner". Sporting News. July 23, 2013. Retrieved July 24, 2013.
  16. "NASCAR AND NBC SPORTS GROUP REACH LANDMARK MEDIA RIGHTS AGREEMENT". NBC Sports Group Press Box. Retrieved July 25, 2013.
  17. "Upfronts 2015: NBC Deportes Ramps Up". Multichannel News. Retrieved May 16, 2015.
  18. "NBC Sports and R&A agree". GolfChannel.com. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved August 30, 2015.
  19. Ourand, John (October 12, 2015). "NBC getting British Open a year early". Sports Business Journal. Retrieved October 12, 2015.
  20. Fang, Ken. "NBC'S UNIVERSAL SPORTS CHANNEL IS OFFICIALLY NO MORE; SPORTS TO RELOCATE THROUGHOUT NBC PROPERTIES". Awful Announcing. Retrieved November 21, 2015.
  21. "Aviva Premiership Going Live on NBC Sports in America". London Irish. London Irish. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
  22. Are NBC’s over-the-top packages, including the new $70 track one, a vision of the future? – Andrew Bucholtz, Awful Announcing, 12 April 2017
  23. NBC Sports Gold Adds Passes for Rugby, Pro Motocross – Troy Dreier, Sports Video, 1 May 2017
  24. "IRL caught in TV war". Indianapolis Business Journal. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
  25. "The Indy 500 will soon have a new TV network". Indianapolis Star. Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  26. Steinberg, Brian (March 21, 2018). "NBC Sports Grabs Indianapolis 500 Rights From ABC After 54 Years". Variety. Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  27. "IMSA moving to NBC Sports in 2019". Racer. April 30, 2018. Retrieved November 5, 2018.
  28. https://www.golfchannel.com/news/nbc-reacquires-broadcast-rights-usgas-full-slate-championships
  29. "NBC's Final Medal Count: 190 Million Olympic Viewers". Multichannel News. March 1, 2010.
  30. "Olympic Hockey Gold Medal Game Viewed by Most in U.S. Since '80". Business Week. March 1, 2010.
  31. "NBC to provide unprecedented coverage of 2014 Winter Sochi Olympics". Comcast Corporate. December 20, 2013. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  32. "NBC to stream exclusive Winter Olympics digital programming". HD Report. January 10, 2014. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
  33. "Troika Design Group Develops Branding for NBC Sunday Night Football". TV Technology. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  34. Dachman, Jason. "NBC Sports Network Off and Running With New Graphics Package". Sports Video Group. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  35. Teti, John. "Everybody was excited about NBC's updated football graphics last weekend". The AV Club. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  36. "Grading NBC's broadcast of Super Bowl LII". SI.com. Retrieved March 14, 2018.
  37. "NBC embarks on tighter relationship with Sky Sports to enhance Premier League coverage". WorldSoccerTalk.com. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
  38. NBC did not provide live event coverage due to the U.S.-led boycott.
  39. "Spike TV's deal with PBC has reached its end". ESPN.com. April 12, 2017.
  40. Brown, Les (July 19, 1979). "CBS Alumni Reunite at NBC's Top". The New York Times.
  41. Jack Craig (June 30, 1991). "Watson got results, not publicity". Boston Globe. Retrieved May 15, 2012.
  42. "Former Chairman of NBC Sports Group Dick Ebersol, USOC CMO Lisa Baird to be Honored at 2012 PromaxBDA Sports Marketing Summit & Awards". Yahoo! (Press release). October 17, 2012. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  43. "PLUS: TELEVISION SPORTS; New President Named at NBC". The New York Times. June 19, 1998. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
  44. Nellie Andreeva. "Post-Merger NBC Sports Group Unveils Executive Team". Deadline.com. Retrieved November 15, 2012.
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