With parent company Comcast’s decision to shut down NBC Sports Network, NBCUniversal is making an effort to make USA Network relevant to sports fans once again, according to Nick Wosika of Front Office Sports.
USA was once a popular primetime channel but due to cord-cutting, has lost its usefulness when it comes to airing live sports.
Per FOS, “some of the conglomerate’s live sports content that isn’t heading to Peacock will instead make its way to USA — NHL, NASCAR, and English Premier League broadcasts in particular.”
“This will make USA Network an extraordinarily powerful platform in the media marketplace and gives our sports programming a significant audience boost,” said NBC Sports Group Chairman Pete Bevacqua.
However, there are some concerns that there is nothing left to be done when it comes to retaining TV’s traditional customer base.
“Sports won’t solve what ails these networks,” analyst Michael Nathanson told Bloomberg’s Gerry Smith. “The core concept of tune-in entertainment on linear networks is no longer attractive to younger customers. So their reach is falling.”
As notes by FOS, last year, broadcast networks and pay TV accounted for just a chunk of Comcast’s revenue — $21 billion of the total $103.6 billion in sales.
