In 2000, NBC declined to renew its broadcast agreement with Major League Baseball (MLB). In 2002, it was additionally outbid by ESPN and ABC for the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s new broadcast contract, ending the league's twelve-year run on NBC.
Former logo for NBC Sports, used from 1989 until 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 (AFL). 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. NBC, along with Fox and 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 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.[2] In addition to this regular season success, Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals was watched by an average of 8 million viewers, the highest ratings for an NHL game in 36 years.[3]
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, LVI and LX.
Former logo of NBC Sports, used from 2011 until 2023
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.[4] 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.[5]
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.[6] 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.[7]
From 2012 until 2015, Major League Soccer (MLS) 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.[8] 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.[9]
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.[10][11][12] They lost the broadcast rights to ESPN beginning from the 2018 season.[13][14]
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.[16][17]
On June 7, 2015, amid its loss of rights to the USGA's championships to Fox (including the U.S. Open), NBC Sports and The R&A 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.[19] Existing rightsholder ESPN opted out of its final year of its agreement for the tournaments, with the Open subsequently debuting a year early in 2016.[20]
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 either Universal HD, NBCSN and NBC Sports Live Extra.[21]
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.[22]
In June 2016, NBC Sports launched NBC Sports Gold, a suite of sport-specific over-the-top subscription services that would included expanded and overflow coverage of its properties.[23]
On July 15, 2017. NBCUniversal relaunched Universal HD as Olympic Channel, a network that would carry Olympic sports programming as a complement to its long-standing agreement to cover the Games.[24][25]
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),[26] through 2021, and acquire the broadcast television rights previously held by 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.[27][28] Shortly after, NBC announced a six-year agreement with the International Motor Sports Association beginning in 2019, including the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with the majority of coverage on NBCSN.[29]
2020s
Following the launch of NBCUniversal's streaming service Peacock, NBC Sports began to migrate some of its overflow content (including the Premier League and other NBC Sports Gold services) to the service.[30] On June 29, 2020, Fox sold the last seven years of its contract to air USGA tournaments to NBC, regaining rights to the U.S. Open for the first time since 2015.[31][32]
In January 2021, it was reported that NBCUniversal planned to shut down NBCSN by the end of the year; an internal memo cited increased competition from streaming services and the other mainstream sports networks as reasoning.[33][34]
NBC's contract with the NHL expired after the 2020–21 season, with the league signing new contracts with ESPN and TNT.[35][36]
On December 31, 2021, NBCUniversal shut down NBCSN;[37] its remaining programming rights were moved to other NBCUniversal platforms, particularly USA Network and Peacock.[37]
On April 6, 2022, NBC Sports announced a deal to carry a package of Sunday afternoon MLB games on Peacock beginning in the 2022 season.[38][39] On July 1, 2022, NBC Sports announced that Olympic Channel would shut down as a linear channel on September 30, 2022.[40][41]
On August 18, 2022, NBC Sports announced a seven-year deal to carry Big Ten Conference college athletics across its platforms beginning in the 2023–24 academic season. This contract will most notably include a new package of primetime Big Ten college football games on NBC beginning in the 2023 season, as well as a package of college basketball and Olympic sports coverage on Peacock.[42][43]
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,[44] including 27.6 million viewers of the gold medal game in men's hockey.[45]
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.[46] 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.[47]
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.[48]
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).[49] 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.[50]
NBC began using dedicated graphics packages specifically for Sunday Night Football during Super Bowl LII, and unveiled a second redesign for the 2022 season during Super Bowl LVI.[51][52] NBC similarly diverged for its Premier League coverage in 2019, adopting elements of its new British sibling Sky Sports.[53] In 2023, NBC transitioned college football (which had continued to use the 2015 graphics) to new graphics derived from the Sunday Night Football graphics introduced in 2022.[54]
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