The NBC Sports Network will shut down at the end of 2021, the company said Friday. That will cut out the most prominent home among traditional networks to watch competitive swimming in the United States.
Much of the network’s programming will move to sister-station USA Network, also owned by NBCUniversal, while NBCUniversal’s new paid streaming service Peacock will also carry some of the programming that was previously on NBC Sports, beginning in 2022.
The network was the television home to many of USA Swimming’s major events, including the flagship Pro Swim Series and some National Championship meets, in parallel with another NBCUniversal property, The Olympic Channel. The Olympic Channel will continue to air Olympic programming, but its reach is much smaller than NBCSN’s current reach of about 80 million households. We couldn’t find updated household numbers for the Olympic Channel, but when the network launched in 2017, it was expected to reach about 35 million American households.
“We’re all aware of how quickly the media landscape is evolving, and our company is taking thoughtful steps to stay ahead of these trends wherever possible and, in many instances, help set them,” the memo announcing the decision from NBC Universal read.
The conglomerate believes that this will make the company’s remaining platforms stronger, what one analyst and media consultant Patrick Crakes called “reverse segmentation.”
USA Network regularly participates in NBC’s Olympic coverage and also hosts NHL games and NASCAR races.
This will also shift the network’s biggest property, the American rights to English Premier League soccer, to USA Network and more significantly to the Peacock platform. The latter shift had already begun prior to Friday’s announcement.
What specifically this means for swimming won’t become clear until later. With the upstart International Swimming League, which has taken an often-combative stance with the multi-billion dollar Olympic investment by NBC, spent its first season on ESPN before moving to the CBS Sports Network. NBC has generally seen synergies with inter-Olympic competition in sports like swimming as a way to support its once-every-two-years financial windfall.
We are going to continue to see an increasing number of significant businesses folding under prolonged lockdowns in some states. Simply not enough cash to sustain operations.
Does this mean no more Rowdy??
Hopefully
I don’t get the hate Rowdy gets from some people. I’m sure “popular” sports commentary sounds very simple to people who played those sports. One of the only ways to get people to take interest in swimming is to break it down into simpler terms and Rowdy does a great job of that, even if it seems a bit repetitive to people that are engulfed in the swimming community. If this means no more Rowdy, I really hope he lands on his feet, and I’m sure he will.
No because he was on the ISL and NCAA broadcasts on different networks
That would be a disaster! He is such a super participant!
The ISL concept is simply a brilliant idea, meets well run, atmosphere great and CBS sport network did a half way decent job covering the second season. TYR meets are incredibly boring, there is no atmosphere, it’s basically a glorified practice for most athletes. Nbcsn does a subpar job covering them and I bet their ratings reflect that. USA swimming is better off having the TYR meets on their website along a summary show on the Olympic channel.
If the Olympics don’t take place this summer which is entirely possible NBC is due to lose over a billion which means more losses for CONcast and more channels and programming cut. Doesn’t bode well for most Olympic sports but swimming… Read more »
I agree 100%
So NBC Sports owns Sports Engine… Sports Engine owns Team Unify. What does that mean?
It is all Rowdy’s fault
BUT WHERE WILL I BE ABLE TO WATCH 2 MINUTES OF SPORTS AND 58 MINUTES OF COMPRESSION SOCK COMMERCIALS EVERY HOUR?
To be fair however, my kids’ club team facebook livecasts are better quality than the NBC Sports content. The sport is better off with someone else promoting it.