By Chad Finn
| GLOBE STAFF
DECEMBER 28, 2012
It was on Jan. 2 of this year that the formal christening of the
NBC Sports Network took place, the setting being the NHL’s Winter Classic
between the Rangers and Flyers on NBC.
While it may be difficult to fathom at the moment that both the
drab Versus channel (rebranded and upgraded as NBCSN less than six years after
a previous name change from Outdoor Life Network) and live NHL games actually
existed in this calendar year, it’s apparent now that the unveiling a year ago
no longer stands as the symbol of what NBCSN can be and how far it still has to
go.
The fledgling cable sports network’s most definitive moment yet
occurred on Dec. 10, when the early minutes of the Patriots-49ers “Sunday Night
Football’’ matchup on NBC were preempted by President Obama’s remarks from
Newtown, Conn., two days after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Play-by-play voice Al
Michaels told viewers that the game could be found on the NBC Sports Network
until NBC returned to regular programming. The instant social media reaction —
collectively if not-so-politely asking, “Say, how might I find NBC Sports
Network?” — was overwhelming and telling. It subsided only when the @SNFonNBC twitter
feed sent out a channel guide to assist those unfamiliar with NBCSN.
The publicity of having a Sunday night game was valuable, and it
offered a glimpse into the synergy coveted between NBC and NBCSN, even as the
latter has struggled to find an audience in its first year. Available in 80
million homes — roughly 19 million fewer than both ESPN and ESPN2 — it has had
ratings highs (4.35 million viewers for the US-Japan women’s gold-medal soccer
match in the London Olympics) and serious lows (an average of 71,000 prime-time
viewers from Aug. 20-26, an all-time low for the network even during its OLN
and Versus incarnations).
Such trials and tribulations in trying to establish a loyal
audience in sports cable television are not unique to NBC Sports Network. ESPN,
of course, is the established behemoth with resources upon resources. But there
are others besides NBCSN who want as large a portion possible of the ESPN
stranglehold.
CBS College Sports was rebranded as CBS Sports Network in February
2011, and while it does not show up in the regular Nielsen ratings because it
does not subscribe, it is now available in 48 million homes. Perhaps most
intriguing, powerful Fox is expected to rebrand Speed — already available in 80
million homes — in August, renaming it Fox Sports 1.
Executives at CBS and NBC don’t exactly throw down the gauntlet at
ESPN. “We just focus on our own thing,’’ said David Berson, CBS Sports Network
president. “Obviously lots of folks enjoy writing about the comparison, whether
it’s ESPN, NBC, Fox, Turner, CBS. We don’t look at it that way, even though
it’s inevitable that people will.”
One of those people is ESPN president John Skipper, who told John
Ourand of Sports Business Journal this month, “We’ve always had competition.
But there’s a little more overt strategy from our competitors to look a little
more like ESPN than they have in the past . . . That’s OK. It’s a
free market. I’m happiest about the fact that we have about a 30-year head
start, and we’ve taken a leadership position.”
That lead is significant. But the question is: How soon can NBCSN
and CBSSN — the two cable sports networks already in action — gain any
meaningful ground? Or can they at all?
Programming improves
Say this for NBC Sports Network: Its programming schedule has come
a long way from those Versus days of such mindless filler as the “T.Ocho Show”
and “Whacked-Out Sports.” “The Dan Patrick Show” — which the host wryly
describes as a “TV show about a radio show that’s on TV’’ — is as entertaining
and fun as sports talk gets, and its November addition to the schedule serves
as a morning anchor for the day’s programming, a role the former
“SportsCenter’’ anchor is savoring.
“It’s only a matter of time before [ESPN tries] to steal this —
sample this idea, I should say,’’ Patrick said with his familiar deadpan. “I
look forward to that because I think it will help people further realize how
good this is, the show, the product that we have. It took a long time to try to
formulate that.
“When I worked at the mother ship’’ — the catchphrase he uses to
reference ESPN on his program, which also airs on DirecTV — “they were
programming the show. ‘You can talk about these things, but you can’t talk
about that.’ I’d never do that again.
“I’ve heard CBS Sports is considering a show like this for the
morning, and Fox as well. Until they do it, good luck. Bring your breakfast and
your lunch because it’s going to be all day.”
Patrick sets the table, but there are other appealing shows on
NBCSN. “NFL Turning Point,’’ a look at pivotal moments from the weekend’s NFL
games, is excellent, something Steve Sabol might have appreciated. The engaging
Michelle Beadle, plucked away from ESPN, will soon host her own show. NBC has
also been aggressive in cutting deals that extend beyond the borders of the US,
such as with the Premier League and Formula One.
“We are becoming a much more cosmopolitan society,’’ said Jon
Miller, NBCSN’s president of programming, “and a lot of people are living here
who moved here from other countries. We want to take advantage of that.”
NBC also is attempting to fill its void in live sports with deals
with several college conferences, including a mutual one (along with CBS and
ESPN) with the Atlantic-10 and the out-of-New England rights to Hockey East
broadcasts. On New Year’s Day, it will replay all of Notre Dame’s football
games that aired on NBC this season.
Miller is candid in acknowledging that a big reason for the void
in programming — the NHL lockout (which will have cost NBCSN 33 games by the
end of December) — is a source of enormous aggravation.
“It’s been very challenging and very frustrating,’’ Miller said.
“We never had any indication that this situation with the NHL was going to last
until January. It was always our understanding that this was going to be a tweak
and a fix.”
The CBS strategy
While NBC Sports Network is to some degree at the mercy of the
NHL, its chief current counterpart as a relative cable-sports newcomer
recognizes a chance to make a move in the coming months.
CBS holds the rights to Super Bowl XLVII Feb. 3, and in March will
be the familiar home of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Adding a
prolonged post-Super Bowl program on CBS Sports Network is only one way it will
attempt to maximize its relationship with CBS.
“It’s definitely a focal point,’’ said Berson, who is in his
second year at CBS after 16 at ESPN. “So many people for years and years have
associated that time of year with CBS, from the NFL postseason, certainly the
Super Bowl, the final stretch of the college basketball season and the NCAA
Tournament, leading right into the Masters.”
As might be expected from a network that originated as College
Sports Television before it was bought by CBS and renamed CBS College Sports in
2006, there is a deep reservoir of college games in its repertoire.
CBSSN’s lineup of original studio programming is a work in
progress, though the Phil Simms-centric “NFL Monday QB’’ has gained some
momentum. Its strategy, however, is obvious: pursue established names with multi-platform
appeal that might bring an audience with them.
The versatile Doug Gottlieb, signed as a free agent after nine
years at ESPN, is one. He hosts the daily hour-long midnight program “Lead
Off,” and his college basketball expertise in part makes him an obvious fit.
The other is the one and only Jim Rome, another ESPN expatriate who hosts a
show on the cable network, another program on Showtime, and, like Gottlieb,
will have his own program on the CBS Sports Radio network when it launches Jan.
2. CBSSN is banking on him to be a franchise player.
“I live in fear that someone is going to knock on my door one day
and say, ‘Look, you had a pretty good run, pal, but we don’t really give a damn
what you have to say anymore,’ ” said Rome. “And I know that day is coming at
some point, so I wake up every morning and try to find a way to keep that knock
on the door from coming.
“At the same time, I’m like anybody else. I recognize there’s
pressure on me to perform and achieve and justify why they rolled me out. When
I’ve seen pictures of me and the promotion that they did, I know people are
watching it, and the expectations are high. I’m rejuvenated, I’m motivated, and
I do not want to fall on my face.”
A wary Goliath?
ESPN, which surely recognizes characteristics of its own business
model in CBSSN and NBCSN’s quest for versatile, multi-platform talent and live
programming, is playing it cool, even as it has taken to announcing when its
own talent has re-signed, such as it did with Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo
last summer.
“People always assume that competition always has to do with us,’’
said Skipper in his Sports Business Journal interview.
“If Fox starts a 24/7 network, it doesn’t mean that whatever they
will do will come from us. Maybe the other guys should be worried. Maybe it
will come from them.’’
But at least one ESPN alum who has jumped to the competition
suggests Goliath is wary of multiple Davids.
“I’ve been in those ESPN meetings,’’ said Gottlieb. “They know
that their biggest challenge isn’t going to be CBS, NBC, or Fox. It’s going to
be CBS, NBC, and Fox. If and when it happens, it’s not going to be one fell
swoop. It’s going to be a thousand little cuts.’’
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