sports

Fox Sports unveiled its game plan and official TV schedule for its coverage of the 2018 World Cup this summer in Russia. Despite not having the U.S. team in the mix this year — nor world powers Italy and the Netherlands, for that matter — Fox said it will air 38 games live on the broadcast network, more than the previous four World Cups combined and the most ever for an English-language network.

A compelling finish was not enough to save Sunday’s Daytona 500 ratings. The Daytona 500 earned a 5.1 overnight rating on Fox, down 22% from last year (6.5), down 16% from 2016 (6.1), and the lowest for the race in at least 10 seasons. It’s likely that the 5.1 is the lowest ever for the race, but overnights prior to 2009 were not immediately available.

While social media was around during prior Olympics, they have a much bigger presence this time around, with everything from Instagram “Stories” to auto-play videos on Twitter parlaying brand messages. The speed in which athletes break out to become stars happens more quickly now.

To come even close to covering the $3.3 billion it agreed to pay the NFL for its Thursday primetime package, Fox is going to have to generate more money from retrans and reverse comp. It can do that by acquiring more stations and putting a tighter squeeze on mVPDs and affiliates. But in doing so, it may eventually test the economic and regulatory limits of retrans.

Fox Sports will broadcast the NFL draft this season, along with the NFL’s usual television partners of ESPN and NFL Network. A person familiar with the decision says Fox will show the same feed as the NFL Network. ESPN will still air its own draft feed.

Live streaming sports TV service FuboTV has added another six stations, bringing the total to 193 (including those owned and operated by or affiliated with CBS, FOX or NBC), plus access to Fox network […]

Two big NFL playoff games helped broadcasters earn a slight gain in primetime viewership for January — increasing a rare occurrence. Broadcast was up 1% in primetime 18-49 viewership in January to 8 million total 18-49 viewers in the Nielsen C3 metric, according to MoffettNathanson Research analysis of Nielsen data. C3 is the average minute commercial rating plus three days of time-shifted viewing.

NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus said Tuesday that ratings are exceeding the guarantees that NBC gave to its advertisers which has enabled the network to sell even more commercial time. NBC said before the games it had sold $900 million worth of advertising.

Coverage of Major League Soccer’s Real Salt Lake club and others will be available digitally via the Salt Lake City NBC affiliate’s connected TV “Over-the-Top” app and its website.

For two straight years, YouTube has bid on the rights to stream NFL games and lost. But it sounds like Google’s giant video platform would love to see the third time be the charm. “I’d love to stream the NFL,” YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said iMonday. Wojcicki went on to say that she couldn’t speak to specific business deals or potential ones, but was comfortable laying out the pitch for why YouTube should be an attractive home to big live sporting events.

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC has apologized to South Koreans for an on-air remark by an analyst that cited Japan as an example that has been important to the country’s […]

The 2018 Winter Olympics from PyeongChang, South Korea, will be under way in less than 24 hours, and, for Dave Mazza, SVP-CTO of NBC Sports Group and NBC Olympics, launch preparations have gone smoothly so far.

21st Century Fox Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch: “Live sport has never been more important than it is today. This is why we are energized and excited about our recent deal with the NFL to make Fox Sports the official home of Thursday Night Football for the next five years. NFL programming is hands down the most powerful in all of media.”

NBC’s morning TV franchise has become adept at leveraging the network’s coverage of the Olympic Games. Every two years viewers can count on emotional athletes and their families and friends stopping by the remote set of the program on the Olympics site to share the glory. There is more on the line than usual this year due to a wrenching change Today went through Nov. 28, when longtime co-anchor Matt Lauer was fired over his alleged sexually inappropriate behavior with an employee.

For the first time, NBC will air its evening coverage live across the country, meaning the broadcast that starts at 8 p.m. on the East Coast starts at 5 p.m. out West. With a half-hour break for local news, Mike Tirico will stay on the air each evening until 2 a.m. ET, coinciding with the end of primetime out West. NBC believes the time zone difference will serve the American audience well. Since prime evening viewing time coincides with daylight hours in South Korea, it means more live events than usual when most viewers are available.

Discovery Communications wants a more complete picture of who’s tuning in to watch the Winter Olympics this month, so it’s aggregating data from linear broadcast, digital platforms and social media engagement metrics. Tying TV and digital viewing patterns together has become more of a conundrum as content consumption has shifted online and split across screens.

Last month, we posted some updated guidelines about engaging in or accepting advertising or promotions that directly or indirectly allude to the Super Bowl without a license from the NFL. Now, that is behind us (for another year), it is just in time to think about these issues in the context of the Winter Olympics.

Mike Tirico is replacing Bob Costas as host of NBC’s primetime Olympics coverage, which starts Thursday from Pyeongchang, South Korea. Costas hosted 11 Olympics starting in 1992 until he stepped down last year. He became as identified with the event as Jim McKay was for an earlier generation. “I’m taking the approach of I’m following him, not replacing him,” Tirico said. “You don’t replace someone like Bob.”

On Wednesday, two significant streaming live sports deals were announced. One represented a major extension of the status quo, while the other painted a picture of what the future could hold.

Securities analysts Michael Nathanson says the $3.3 billion deal for Thursday Night Football “is both offensive and defensive. It is no secret that Fox network has struggled outside of sports. Devoting Thursday nights in the fall to football means one less night of original programming to worry about.”

$60 million per game for the worst game of the week? Here’s why huge bid could be worth it

The Thursday Night Football games previously were televised by CBS and NBC, two of the league’s other network partners. But Fox announced Wednesday that it will televise 11 games between Weeks 4 and 15, with simulcasts on NFL Network and Fox Deportes. Fox, is reported to be paying around $550 million per year, up from the $450 million CBS and NBC paid for 10 games.

Fox Broadcasting is close to a deal for the rights to Thursday Night Football, according to people familiar with the matter, betting that adding NFL games to its primetime schedule will boost viewership despite the league’s recent decline in the ratings.The company submitted a bid that’s higher than the $45 million a game CBS and NBC agreed to pay last year, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The deal hasn’t been finalized and could still fall apart.

After a down 2016, NFL ratings fell again in 2017, and that could negatively impact how much broadcasters and digital media companies are willing to pay for rights packages. According to MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson, regular season ratings were down 13% and the playoffs are down between 12% and 20%. He said that the NFL is experiencing a structural decline.

WWE founder and chairman Vince McMahon announced Thursday he is giving a professional football league another go. It will be called the XFL, the same name of the league McMahon and NBC tried for one season in 2001, but it won’t rely on flashy cheerleaders and antics as its predecessor did, he said.