Sports TV News

NBC, NFL Extend Sunday Night Football Agreement For 11 More Years

The NFL is keeping Sunday Night Football on NBC.

Published

3 years ago

March 19, 2021

Sunday night football viewers won’t have to change their viewing habits for the next 11 years. The NFL is staying put on NBC. The two parties have announced a brand new 11-year extension which calls for NBC Sports to continue as the exclusive home for primetime television’s #1 show for the past 10 years, Sunday Night Football.

The deal will officially go into place in 2023. Under the terms of the new agreement, NBC and Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, will broadcast the Sunday night game thru 2033. Starting with the 2021 season, Peacock will begin streaming all NBC Sunday Night Football games and the Football Night in America studio show. Peacock will also create a new exclusive and expanded postgame show following each week’s game.

“We are excited to expand upon our relationship with the NFL, which is the most powerful content in sports and entertainment,” said Pete Bevacqua, Chairman, NBC Sports Group. “Sunday Night Football has been television’s most-watched primetime show for a decade, and we look forward to continuing our best-in-class presentation of SNF, Super Bowls, and playoff games for many years to come, while also broadening our audience with Peacock becoming the live streaming home for all NBC NFL games.”

“Comcast and the NBC family have been outstanding partners for us and we are excited to continue that relationship long into the future,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. “Sunday Night Football is firmly established as the No. 1 show in primetime television, and we are looking forward to working with NBC and Peacock to continue to bring the NFL to more fans in more ways than ever before.”

According to NBC’s press release, the network will broadcast a Divisional Playoff game in each of the next 13 seasons. They will also televise two Wild Card playoff games during the 2021, 2022, 2023, 2026, and 2031 seasons, with a single Wild Card telecast in all other seasons. In each of the next seven seasons, NBC will carry a Sunday primetime Wild Card game. All NBC NFL postseason games will stream live on Peacock.

Peacock will also serve as the exclusive national home of six NFL regular-season games – one each year from 2023-28 (giving NBC Sports an additional regular-season game in those seasons) – and will launch a virtual NFL channel, highlighting classic games, as well as NFL Films’ series, library, and archival content, which will all also be available on demand. NBC Sports will have the option to incorporate enhanced and interactive features in game presentations to be streamed live on NBC digital platforms, including Peacock.

Another positive for NBC/Peacock, they’ll have the opportunity to produce four of the next 13 Super Bowls, including an additional three Super Bowls as part of the new deal. The events which will fall under NBC’s control are the 2022 Super Bowl in Los Angeles, and Super Bowl games that will be played in 2026, 2030, and 2034. The cities for those games have not yet been determined.

One tidbit that did cause a few media pundits to raise their eyebrows, the NFL will have the opportunity to terminate the agreement with NBC on a one-time basis after seven years of the new deal have been completed. Whether they do or not will depend largely on the appetite for media rights at that time.

BSM Staff

Up Next

NFL Games Headed To Paramount+ In New CBS Deal

Don't Miss

ESPN Gets 2 Super Bowls, Exclusive ESPN+ Games in New NFL Deal

Sports TV News

Final SEC on CBS Broadcast Scores Highest-Rated Conference Championship Game

The broadcast of Alabama/Georgia marked the final game in a partnership that began in 1996.

Published

14 hours ago

December 6, 2023

Jordan Bondurant

The final SEC broadcast on CBS turned out to be the most-watched game of the weekend.

The SEC Championship broadcast on CBS averaged 17.519 million viewers, making it the most-watched conference championship game on any network in five years.

Viewership of the telecast peaked at 22.35 million. The game was the second-most-watched college football game of the season so far behind Ohio State/Michigan.

The game also was the most-streamed college football game ever on Paramount+ across households, minutes, and average minute audience.

Jordan Bondurant

Jordan Bondurant is a features reporter for Barrett Sports Media. He’s a multimedia journalist and communicator who works at the Virginia State Corporation Commission in Richmond. Jordan also contributes occasional coverage of the Washington Capitals for the blog NoVa Caps. His prior media experiences include working for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Danville Register & Bee, Virginia Lawyers Weekly, WRIC-TV 8News and Audacy Richmond. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @J__Bondurant.

Sports TV News

NBCUniversal CEO Mark Lazarus: People Have Said Sports TV Rights Bubble Would Burst for 30 Years

“For 30 years everyone said, the sports [rights] bubble is gonna burst, it’s gonna burst. You’re starting to see rights fees growth moderate.”

Published

14 hours ago

December 6, 2023

Jordan Bondurant

Courtesy: NBCUniversal, Inc.

Value is power when it comes to sports rights, and NBCUniversal CEO Mark Lazarus understands that. It’s why newly completed media rights deals across sports, and college sports in particular, command billions of dollars from networks each year now.

Next TV reported that Lazarus, in a conversational interview with TODAY host Hoda Kotb on Tuesday, said while the price for rights to properties like the NFL, NASCAR, Notre Dame, and the Big Ten are astronomical, the cost is starting to level off in some ways.

“For 30 years everyone said, the sports [rights] bubble is gonna burst, it’s gonna burst,” Lazarus told Kotb. “You’re starting to see rights fees growth moderate.”

Lazarus mentioned that there are no individual content budgets for sports, news, and entertainment at NBCUniversal. Those three divisions have a single budget executives work from. Executives are responsible for finding content audiences will consume and a platform to house it on.

“What’s the best content and where can it be successful in our portfolio?” Mark Lazarus said. “It’s a combination of art and commerce.”

“We reach massive amounts of people, we have reach and scale,” he later added, pointing out the company reaches 65-70 million homes on pay TV and another 30 million on Peacock.

“That’s great for our distribution partners and that’s great for our advertising partners and it’s really important for our audience.”

Mark touted Sunday Night Football, which is a ratings juggernaut and averages 22 million viewers. The NFL streaming on Peacock has also seen strong numbers this season, with this past week’s Chiefs/Packers game having an average minute audience of 1.86 million viewers. That’s between Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital platforms. It marked the second-largest streaming audience ever for a regular-season Sunday NFL game for NBC Sports.

Jordan Bondurant

Sports TV News

CBS Sports Shares Details of Spongebob-Themed NFL Broadcasts

Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson return to the booth for both games alongside Dylan Schefter and Young Dylan.

Published

20 hours ago

December 5, 2023

Jeff Kotuby

Get ready for some Turtles on Christmas and some SpongeBob on Super Bowl Sunday. CBS Sports and Nickelodeon are teaming up to deliver two alternate NFL broadcasts this year — one for the Monday night “Nickmas” game between the Las Vegas Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs, and then a second, SpongeBob Squarepants-themed broadcast for Super Bowl LVIII.

Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson return to the booth for both games alongside Dylan Schefter and Young Dylan. The live-action hosts will be joined by two groups of Nicktoons depending on the game.

SpongeBob and Patrick (voiced by Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke, respectively) will join Eagle and Burleson in the booth for Super Bowl LVIII, while Sandy and Larry the Lobster will provide some additional flair from the sidelines. The Bikini Bottom crew will be joined by Dora the Explorer and Boots the Monkey, who will explain penalties to the younger viewers. During the “Nickmas” Game on Dec. 25, the crew will be joined by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s Raphael in the booth, while Donatello will join Schefter on the sidelines.

The Christmas Day game will be Nickelodeon’s first regular-season game, as previous Nick alternate broadcasts were all during Wild Card Weekend. Last year, Nick aired an alternate broadcast of Cowboys/49ers, which drew an audience of 41 million viewers. The games have also become a social media phenomenon from adult viewers watching tongue-in-cheek.

The Nickelodeon Super Bowl telecast and Nickelodeon NFL Nickmas Game are produced by CBS Sports in association with Nickelodeon Productions.

Jeff Kotuby

Jeff Kotuby is a nationally-published journalist with bylines on many popular broadcasting and pop culture sites, including The Streamable, eBaum’s World, Twin Galaxies, and more. Jeff grew up in the shadows of New York City and cultivated his love for sports media with the classic broadcasting voices of the area, like Mike & The Mad Dog, Mike “Doc” Emerick, and Michael Kay. You can reach Jeff on Twitter @JeffKotu3y.