(05-01-2021 12:26 AM)Wedge Wrote: (04-30-2021 10:58 PM)AllTideUp Wrote: (04-28-2021 01:09 AM)Wedge Wrote: (04-28-2021 12:37 AM)AllTideUp Wrote: (04-27-2021 10:10 AM)stever20 Wrote:
I wondered if HBO Max might be involved. To my knowledge, that is the first sporting content on that service.
Interesting set of circumstances. NBC is left with the EPL, which is becoming a decently valued product in the US, and a smattering of other rights. Sunday Night Football and Notre Dame are the highlights.
Starting to wonder if they might go after a major college league at this stage. It's getting a little light over there on the content side.
NBC no longer has a sports channel and has no place to put the inventory of a college conference or a major US pro league. They are going to use Premier League to drive subscriptions to Peacock. The only other sports events they have that require channels other than the broadcast network are Olympics, and they'll use their non-sports channels to take up inventory there.
I wouldn't completely agree with that. They have one of the few broadcast networks and a ton of cable channels. I don't think they got rid of NBCSN because it wasn't successful, it was just more efficient. A lot of their sports content will be moving to USA although I agree they want to pump up Peacock.
I'm skeptical that NBC/Comcast will put any top-shelf sports content on USA Network. The only things they publicly announced that are going to USA are NHL (which is going elsewhere after this season) and auto racing. I'm sure they'll put second-tier Olympic events on USA as well, because they've done that with past Olympics.
Two other reasons to be skeptical about sports on USA: 1) NBC/Comcast has been consistently cheap about spending on any sports other than NFL and Olympics, and 2) They need to put sports content (and other original content) on Peacock if they hope to get subscribers for anything but commercial-free reruns of Friends and The Office.
My guess would be USA would be more valuable if they shifted some decent sports content there. TNT has become the most valuable cable network(last time I checked anyway) outside of ESPN and the like in part because of their sports coverage.
That's not to say Comcast/NBC isn't cheap, I agree with that, but it's an opportunity for a quality general content network and there really aren't a lot of good ones. NBCSN was a decent venture, but they never purchased enough quality sports content to really make it stand out.
Peacock will get a lot of sports going forward, but I suspect USA will get some good events as well. For one thing, there are so many EPL games every week. No reason you can't put the best game on NBC, a quality game on USA, and the rest on Peacock. They couldn't do that with another soccer league as there would be too few quality brands to go around, but the number of well supported EPL teams makes that doable.
I also wouldn't rule out the MLS coming back to NBC. They seem to have designs on combining their rights package rather than allowing local packages to emerge. MLS could benefit from even the slightest association with the EPL. NBC, USA, and Peacock could promote English soccer in the morning and American soccer in the afternoon/evening. I know the MLS isn't true top shelf content, but it's something NBC can have in the Summer that won't compete with their NFL investment.
ESPN and FOX have been good homes for MLS, but they've farmed out too many games to local networks and independent deals. I know you can get everything on ESPN+ basically, but it could be marketed better as one package.