Last week, Comcast Corporation announced that it will shut down its sports station NBC Sports Network, formerly known as Versus, by the end of 2021, as reported by Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand.
NBC Sports Network’s biggest draws are the NHL, IMSA, NASCAR, IndyCar, Cycling, Olympics, and other sports content. Comcast also announced that the Golf Channel and the Olympic Channel would not be affected. The NHL’s contract with NBC expires at the end of the 2021 season. The league is looking to add a second network to carry its game. Meanwhile, NASCAR and IndyCar are stuck as these deals won’t expire for a while.
Comcast plans to move some of its sports content to the USA Network and their new streaming service Peacock. Comcast has already moved four sports content off their NBC Sports Gold subscriptions over to Peacock like the Premier League, Speed Skating, Figure Skating Pass, Rugby Pass, Supercross, and Pro Motocross over to Peacock. It’s only a matter of time before Comcast moves everything from Track Pass, IndyCar, and other remaining services to Peacock.
Currently, Peacock has three different plans. You can sign up for free to watch limited shows available at no cost. The other plans include ads for $4.99 or $49.99 a year, or no commercials cost $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. At this point, moving everything over to Peacock suggests these prices will stay at least for a while and a win for Comcast in the streaming wars. You could make a case that Disney should’ve gone this route when they launched both Disney+ and ESPN+ two years ago.
Shutting down NBCSN might seem like a bit of a loss for some, but in actuality, it isn’t once you move sports content over to the other networks that reach a larger audience. Right now, USA Network is available in 86 million homes versus NBC Sports Network’s 80 million. That gap makes a big difference when networks are trying to reach more people.
Back in the day, ESPN was the only sports network around, and most of the games outside of ESPN were on the main networks. ESPN was popular, and that led Disney to acquire them in 1996. Years later, other companies began to have their own sports networks like CBS Sports Network and FOX Sports. Today, CBS and Disney have already started to put some sports content behind the paywall. They could follow Comcast’s lead in shutting down their own sports networks in the future.
Could this backfire for these companies moving sports behind a paywall? Yes, it can and could have ramifications in the end. With so many streaming services, customers are considering these services carefully. Price and content matter greatly. No longer are customers subscribing to every streaming service for sports. They pick one or two and then get the rest of their sports online.
For sports leagues, they have to be aware of the number of viewers they get. Do they want to deliver their content to a large audience or only to a paid audience that will be substantially less? Should they choose to enter into a contract with a network that will solely put their sports behind a paywall, they must be willing to change viewers. Viewers are getting tired of getting hit to watch sports.
The more you squeeze the viewers, the more they revolt. If the viewers are not going to pay for these services then these paywall services might not last long.
