CBS Sports said it launched a new 24-hour free, ad supported streaming television (FAST) channel devoted to the UEFA Champions League.

Dubbed Champions League, the new channel will be initially available on Pluto TV, which, like CBS Sports, is part of Paramount Global.

The channel will also be available via connected devices through the CBS Sports App.

CBS Sports said it plans to make the channel available on additional platforms, including Paramount Plus, which streams every UEFA Champions League match live and on demand. Non-Paramount-owned platforms will also be added in the future.

The FAST channel will feature highlights from this season’s matches as well as looks back at legendary players and memorable games.

CBS Sports operates two other FAST Channels with CBS Sports HQ and soccer-focused Golazo Network. Golazo's social handles have garnered more than 4.2 billion video views over the last year, according to the company.

The UEFA Championships League, composed of the top teams in Europe, has been on CBS Sports since 2020. 

“UEFA Champions League represents the absolute best soccer in the world, and this new channel delivers fans an always-on venue to relive the special moments, sensational goals, iconic players and storied clubs that define this one-of-a-kind tournament,” said Jeffrey Gerttula, executive VP, digital, CBS Sports, News, Stations and Entertainment. “CBS Sports is the 24/7 home for soccer fans in this country, and we’re excited for this latest addition to our industry-leading multiplatform soccer coverage.”

CBS said its coverage of the Super Bowl was the most watched telecast in history, with total audience delivery of up 7% to 123.4 million average viewers across all platforms, based on fast national figures from Nielsen and data from Adobe Analytics.

About 202.4 million viewers watched all or part of the Kansas City Chiefs’ January 11 overtime win over the San Francisco 49ers, up 10% from last year.

Also Read: Super Bowl Overtime Was Money Time for CBS

There were 120 million viewers on CBS, the largest audience ever for a single network, the broadcaster said.

Paramount Plus also had a record-setting audience, establishing a record for the most-streamed Super Bowl in history. CBS did not say how many people streamed the game.

Earlier, Nielsen rival iSpot.tv reported that 126.6 million people watched the Super Bowl, up 10.9% from last year.

Final Nielsen numbers are expected Tuesday. 

Jim Nantz, Tony Romo and Tracy Wolfson are calling Super Bowl LVIII on February 11 on CBS. Evan Washburn and Jay Feely are the reporters, and Gene Steratore is rules analyst. 

The Super Bowl happens in Las Vegas. It is the third time Nantz, Romo and Wolfson will call the big game together. The telecast will be produced by Jim Rikhoff and directed by Mike Arnold.

Armando Quintero and Benny Ricardo call the game in Spanish, with the Spanish-language telecast set to air on Univision.

James Brown anchors the pregame, halftime and postgame coverage. Analysts are Phil Simms, Bill Cowher, Nate Burleson, Boomer Esiason, JJ Watt, Jonathan Jones, Ian Eagle, Charles Davis, Matt Ryan and Jason McCourty. 

The NFL Today is produced by Drew Kaliski and directed by Bob Matina.

On February 10, That Other Pregame Show, hosted by Adam Schein, and Super Bowl LVIII Countdown air. Super Bowl coverage begins at 11:30 a.m. ET February 11 on CBS and Paramount Plus. On Nickelodeon, Nate Burleson and Young Dylan host NFL Slimetime at 11:30 a.m. on Super Bowl Sunday. 

The game is scheduled to kick off at 6:30 p.m. ET 

After the postgame show, Justin Hartley drama Tracker airs on CBS. Hartley, who played Kevin in This is Us, portrays a lone-wolf survivalist who roams the country as a “reward seeker,” helping private citizens and law enforcement solve various mysteries, while also dealing with his own broken family. 

Various CBS programs, including CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell, CBS Mornings and The Talk, will broadcast from Vegas in the days leading up to February 11.

As it prepares to televise Super Bowl LVIII from Las Vegas on February 11, four CBS divisions are taking up residency in Sin City, building outdoor sets from which shows will originate starting February 5.

Naturally, CBS Sports will play a big role. 

The NFL Today will be counting down to the championship.  

Super Bowl Live will be offering news and analysis leading up to the big game

The free 24/7 streaming service CBS Sports HQ will have more than 40 hours of programming, finishing with an extended Super Bowl post-game show

Other sports shows originating from Vegas are NFL Monday QB, That Other Pregame Show, We Need To Talk, The Jim Rome Show and Time to Schein.

CBS News’s CBS Mornings will originate live from Vegas on Thursday and Friday or Super Bowl week. CBS Saturday Morning will also air from the site of the game.

CBS Evening News With Norah O’Donnell will broadcast live from Las Vegas. In addition, the CBS Stations and some CBS affiliates will be broadcasting from the Bellagio hotel.

CBS Entertainment’s show The Talk will be in town Monday through Friday.

The Drew Barrymore Show, from CBS Media Ventures, will tape Drew’s News and field segments in Las Vegas during the week. Syndicated shows Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition will also originate from the Super Bowl venue.

CBS announced its plans during CBS Mornings.

The Paley Museum debuts the Super Bowl exhibit Beyond the Big Game Wednesday, January 17. It runs through March 3 at the museum in New York, and represents a partnership with the NFL and Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

The football fun starts January 17 with Kicking Off Super Bowl LVIII on CBS With The NFL Today, a behind-the-scenes look at CBS Sports’ upcoming broadcast of Super Bowl LVIII. That will feature CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus and on-air personalities Phil Simms, Bill Cowher, Boomer Esiason and Nate Burleson, with Tracy Wolfson, lead reporter for NFL on CBS, moderating. 

Beyond the Big Game will showcase memorable Super Bowl commercials from the past 50 years, including Mean Joe Greene and a young fan bonding over a Coca-Cola; Ridley Scott’s “1984” spot for Apple, Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny teaming up on Nike’s “Hare Jordan” commercial and Bud Bowl I from 1989, which saw stop-motion Budweiser bottles face off against their counterparts from Bud Light. 

The exhibit will feature the Vince Lombardi Trophy and all 57 team rings from each Super Bowl champ, as well as The Weeknd’s halftime show set from Super Bowl LV. There will also be rare artifacts on loan from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including game balls and jerseys.

“For over 50 years the Super Bowl has served as one of the biggest and most exciting global celebrations and visitors to Beyond the Big Game will be treated to a thrilling Super Bowl showcase, featuring everything from iconic commercials to some of the game’s most memorable moments,” Maureen J. Reidy, president and CEO of the Paley Center for Media, said. “We’re honored to partner with the National Football League and the Pro Football Hall of Fame to present this unprecedented exhibit.”

Super Bowl LVIII happens Sunday, February 11 on CBS. 

The exhibit will also feature over 150 photos of iconic Super Bowl moments, screenings of memorable Super Bowl plays, halftime shows and championship games won by the New York Giants and Jets.

The National Women’s Soccer League said it has made deals to have 118 of its games televised by a combination of CBS Sports, ESPN, Amazon Prime Video and Scripps Sports.

Starting in 2024, the NWSL will get a regular Friday-night slot on Prime Video, which has been adding sports on top of Thursday Night Football.

Scripps’s Ion network will air games on Saturday nights. Scripps has been pursuing local and national sports packages and aired the WNBA on Ion.

A package of at league 21 regular-season matches will air on CBS and stream live on Paramount Plus. Additional games will appear on CBS Sports Network.

The Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN will have a package of 17 regular season games appearing on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes. These matches will also stream on ESPN Plus in English and Spanish. ESPN also has English, Spanish and Portuguese-language rights in Latin America.

The NWSL’s remaining games will be available through a direct-to-consumer product produced and distributed by the league.

For the playoffs, Prime Video and CBS have rights to one quarterfinal each. ESPN/ABC will air the other two quarterfinals. 

CBS and ABC/ESPN will each have a semifinal game.

CBS will air the NWSL Championship Game in primetime. The game will also stream on Paramount Plus.

Ion will air the NWSL Draft live in January. 

“These partnerships fundamentally change the game for our league and the players who take the pitch each week. On behalf of the NWSL, our owners and players, I want to commend CBS Sports, ESPN, Prime Video and Scripps for investing in our league and affirmatively declaring to the marketplace that this league is exciting, valuable, and important,” NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman said. “We have taken great care to ensure our games are discoverable by increasing our reach in order to expose new audiences to everything that makes our league special, without compromising the economic value of our product. This is the beginning of our future.”

All of the television rightsholders are making significant commitments to marketing and promoting the NWSL, and will cross-promote each other’s scheduled broadcasts, the league said.

“We’re thrilled to extend our relationship with the NWSL, continuing as the home of the NWSL Championship and offering an expanded slate of matches on CBS as we build on the success of the last four years,” CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said. “Extending this partnership further demonstrates our commitment to elevating women’s sports as we continue to work hand-in-hand with the NWSL to highlight the world’s best women’s soccer players. As we prepare to present the 2023 NWSL Championship this weekend, we are excited to continue to showcase this league across our platforms for years to come and remain the ultimate destination for soccer fans.”

“The NWSL is among the world's best women’s professional soccer leagues, and we are excited to showcase the league, the clubs, and the incredible athletes to sports fans,” said Rosalyn Durant, executive VP, programming and acquisitions, ESPN. “This agreement further strengthens our leadership position as the home for women’s sports.”

“The evolution of women’s sports — and specifically the NWSL — demonstrates that there is a growing audience for remarkable athletes and world-class competition, regardless of gender,” said Marie Donoghue, VP U.S. sports content & partnerships at Amazon. “With the unique power and distribution of Prime Video, and an exclusive window on Friday nights throughout the season, we look forward to expanding that audience as the newest home of the NWSL.”

“Scripps Sports is pleased to create a franchise night on ION for the NWSL that will reach every American household, across every free television platform and further help expand the league’s fan base with appointment viewing consistency,” said Adam Symson, president and CEO of E.W. Scripps. “We’re proud once again to be a part of a historic distribution agreement that will elevate women’s professional sports, benefitting the league, the teams, their athletes and fans.”

Endeavor’s IMG and WME Sports advised the NWSL and handled the negotiations.

“On behalf of the NWSL, we have secured four game-changing, marquee partnerships that will help send the women’s game to new heights of viewership and fandom, growing domestic revenues for the League at a multiple of over 40 times,” said Hillary Mandel, executive VP, head of Americas, IMG.

“The NWSL’s new line-up of media partners are stepping up with significant rights fees, production investment, top-tier platforms and impactful promotion,“ Mandel said. “In lockstep with the NWSL, they are going to transform the ways in which fans can discover and engage with the games, assuring deserved exposure for these world-class athletes on the broadest stage.” 

Paramount Global said commercial inventory for CBS’s telecast of Super Bowl LVII is virtually sold out.

The sellout comes amid a soft market for linear TV in which sports appears to be one of the bright spots, particularly with the SAG-AFTRA strike limiting the amount of original content on the networks.

There have been reports that prices are soft even for NFL inventory, but on Fox’s earnings call Thursday morning, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said football ad prices were selling at above-upfront rates.

CBS declined to talk about pricing, but last year Fox was able to sell some 30-second commercial slots for more than $7 million.

Before the start of the football season, CBS said that its Super Bowl inventory was already 85% to 90% sold out and that it was pacing ahead of previous Super Bowls.

CBS also said that new advertisers were coming into the game, as well as traditional sponsors in the auto, telecom and beer categories.

This year, Paramount will be airing an alternative broadcast of the Super Bowl on its Nickelodeon kids channel.

The game will also be streamed on Paramount Plus.

Paramount Global said CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus plans to retire next April, after 27 years as head of the division, and will be succeeded by David Berson, currently president of CBS Sports.

McManus, son of the legendary sportscaster Jim McKay, joined CBS Sports as president in 1996 and helped bring the National Football League back to the network in 1998.

Also Read: For CBS Sports’s Sean McManus, a Whole Different Ballgame

Benson joined CBS Sports in 2011 and has served as president under McManus since 2013.

“Sean is a first-ballot hall of fame executive who has masterfully managed all aspects of CBS Sports for 27 years and helped guide us through a transformative era in sports television,” George Cheeks, CEO of CBS and chief content officer of news and sports for Paramount Plus, said.  “His achievements here and the culture of excellence he established for CBS Sports — on screen and off — will benefit CBS and Paramount Global long into the future.”

Said McManus: “Leading CBS Sports has been an honor and I have been so fortunate to work with the most talented team in sports media, along with our incredible partners, for nearly three decades. It has been a fantastic run and the thrill of a lifetime.” 

“I am pleased to leave CBS Sports in an even stronger place than when I arrived, knowing that all of our marquee properties are locked up through this decade and beyond,“ he added. “The future at CBS Sports is in the extremely capable hands of David Berson, who will seamlessly succeed me, as we planned. He is an outstanding leader and strategist, with knowledge and experience across all facets of the business, and has established excellent relationships with our partners and across our team.”

Berson has been overseeing CBS Sports’ broadcast, cable, digital and streaming assets. He has also led numerous rights deals negotiations and talent hires.

“David is a brilliant, innovative and passionate leader with deep knowledge and relationships in all areas of our business,“ Cheeks said. “He is highly respected across the industry by his peers, our partners and within CBS Sports and Paramount Global.

“Sean and David’s excellent partnership the past decade has positioned CBS Sports for this smooth transition. David is the ideal executive to lead the next chapter of this proud and storied division,” Cheeks added.

“It has been the privilege of my career to have a front-row seat and work alongside Sean for the past 13 years,” Berson said. “He is the ultimate leader, mentor and friend. I look forward to carrying on the high standards he established, which help define CBS Sports. It is a genuine honor to lead our incomparable CBS Sports team and continue working closely with our world-class partners.”

Paramount Advertising said it is launching the CBS Sports Creator Studio to connect advertisers with a younger generation of sports fans.

The combination of the CBS Sports portfolio of events — including Super Bowl LVIII — with a roster of creators, talent and influencers should drive brand engagement, Paramount Advertising said.

Paramount will vet talent and influencers for brand safety and relevance. In addition it said it ’s committed to fair and equitable pay for BIPOC (Black, indigenous and people of color) talent.

In addition to its properties and talent, Paramount noted that it has scalable production facilities and strategic content distribution capabilities, not to mention experience in social and influencer marketing.

The CBS Sports Creator Studio will have three main ways in which advertisers can tap into CBS Sports’s roster of influencers. 

Influence X Tentpole: Advertisers can work with a sports influencer to give fans exclusive access to coveted moments surrounding tentpoles and championships like pre-game activations and A-list parties.  

Influence & CBS Sports IP: Sponsors work with sports creators to give fans unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to CBS Sports studios, talent and footage to produce interactive content. 

White Label Influence: An advertiser works with an athlete or sports creator to develop custom content with thematic alignment to a specific sport, season, or moment.

CBS’s PGA Golf coverage swung its way to the top of last week’s live sports ratings chart that was otherwise dominated by preseason National Football League games.

CBS’s August 13 coverage of the PGA FedEx St. Jude Championship averaged 3.20 million viewers to top the chart for the week of August 7 to August 13, per Nielsen numbers published by Sports Media Watch. CBS’s pre-event telecast also finished in the top 10 most-watched events for the week with 1.89 million watchers.

NBC’s August 13 NASCAR Cup Series Race finished second for the week with 2.83 million, followed by Fox’s August 12 Saturday baseball coverage with 2.30 million viewers. 

NFL Network placed four preseason game telecasts in the top 10, led by the August 13 San Francisco 49ers-Las Vegas Raiders game with 2.22 million viewers. 

Fox’s  coverage of the August 10 Spain-Netherlands FIFA Women’s World Cup quarterfinal match was the eighth-most-watched event for the week with 1.77 million viewers. 

Falling short of the top 10 was ABC’s August 13 coverage of the Little League Softball World Series Championship Game, which drew 861,000 viewers, placing it behind only the 2002 championship game historically, according to ESPN.  

CBS Sports and Nickelodeon said they will present an alternative telecast for Super Bowl LVIII on Nickelodeon that will feature guest reporters, virtual filters and on-field graphics — including green slime — familiar to viewers of the kids’ network. 

The traditional version of the game will be seen on CBS and Paramount Plus.

CBS and Nickelodeon, both part of Paramount Global, will also slime it up when the Las Vegas Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs play on Christmas Day. 

“This will be a historic Super Bowl in Las Vegas, and we’re thrilled to partner with the NFL to bring the game to the whole family with the first-ever alternate telecast of the Super Bowl,” Paramount president and CEO Bob Bakish said. “In year one of our new long-term deal with the NFL, we continue to maximize our expanded distribution rights and further unlock the value of the League through the demonstrated power of our multiplatform portfolio across CBS, Paramount Plus and Nickelodeon.”

CBS and Nickelodeon, have previously produced Nickelodeon versions of NFL games, including NFL Wild Card Weekend last season. 

“We’re thrilled to partner with CBS Sports and Nickelodeon to present the first alternate telecast of the Super Bowl,” said Hans Schroeder, NFL executive VP of media distribution. “Our previous telecasts on Nickelodeon have been huge hits and created a new and different way to experience an NFL game. We’re excited to bring that creativity to Super Bowl LVIII and give our fans another way to enjoy one of the world’s most popular sporting events.”

Nickelodeon’s Super Bowl telecast will also be distributed internationally in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand on a delayed basis, with further details to be announced soon.

The Nickelodeon Super Bowl telecast and Nickelodeon Nickmas game are produced by CBS Sports in association with Nickelodeon Productions. Sean McManus and Harold Bryant serve as executive producers of The NFL on CBS, and CBS Sports’s Shawn Robbins is coordinating producer of the games. Production for Nickelodeon is overseen by Ashley Kaplan, executive vice president, Nickelodeon & Awesomeness Unscripted & Digital Franchise Studio; Paul J. Medford, VP of unscripted current series; and Luke Wahl, VP of unscripted creative.

On the day we caught up with sports broadcasting legend Jim Nantz, he was coming off, for the very last time, what has been an annual scheduling gauntlet, transitioning from CBS play-by-play of men’s college basketball’s Final Four to pro golf’s The Masters. 

In the midst of all this 24/7 busyness, Nantz bumped his elbow. Real hard. The affable broadcaster just officially stepped away from the March Madness tournament after decades of leading CBS’s coverage. He’ll have a bit more time to spend with a family that features two young kids, but Nantz will remain very active, still spearheading the network’s golf and National Football League play-by-play, the latter alongside Tony Romo. When we got him on the phone from his hometown of Houston, he was on his way to have a doctor finally look at that aching elbow.

Read More: Here’s to the 2023 ‘B+C’ Hall of Fame Inductees

Despite the injury, make no mistake: Nantz, who will turn 64 in May and is certainly among the most decorated on-air personalities in sports broadcasting history, continues to enjoy one heck of a charmed narrative.  

Take his days in the early 1980s at the University of Houston, where he managed to letter on a vaunted golf team that featured Fred Couples and Blaine McCallister.

“That was awful kind of them to do,” Nantz quipped of his letter offering, remarking about his humble place in a program that captured 16 NCAA titles over 30 years. 

But Cougar Golf, and the relationships he formed within it, were among a number of sports-related experiences that were life-changing for Nantz. 

“Every day, I was around people who set goals and achieved them,” he explained. 

It was at Houston that Nantz set his own set of goals: To become the best sports storyteller he could be; and to ply his trade at CBS, the broadcaster on which he’d avidly observed pro golf coverage dating back to his days as a two-sport athlete (golf and basketball) at Marlboro High School in New Jersey.

Truly charmed is the man who knows exactly what he wants to do and who he wants to do it for while still in college. And keeps doing it through four decades. 

But becoming the public address announcer during the nascent days of Houston basketball’s iconic “Phi Slama Jama” era? And being the one to coin the nickname for future NBA Hall of Famer Clyde “The Glide” Drexler, while still just an undergrad?

Come on. This man’s life and career are off the Zelig charts. Even in the earliest of beginnings, he was intersecting, in a meaningful way, with athletes at the very highest of levels. 

‘So Many Amazing People’ 

Zelig is actually an imperfect simile. It implies that Nantz has connected with so many zeitgeist shifters, across multiple eras, by happenstance. 

Intimately familiar with the sports and athletes he’s covered, he’s probably one of the more gifted improvisational journalists of our time, always adhering to the core job requirement — “forming sentences and phrases and storylines in real time, and doing it quickly and succinctly.” 

He’s called so many Final Fours, so many Super Bowls, and so many Masters, and made us feel connected to the athletes and their games so many times, because he’s the best there is at doing this. 

We know this. In a broadcast business in which everything else has been washed away by the erosive forces of digital disruption, the championship games and matches called by Nantz, still seen by mass audiences of tens of millions of viewers, stand ever taller and ever more resilient. 

What is surprising is the sheer volume of interesting relationships this man has formed. Asked who he’ll remember most, Nantz can spend minutes rattling off the personal bonds he’s formed with the athletes and coaches he’s covered extensively: “Belichick and Brady” … “Peyton Manning” … “Arnold Palmer.” 

Career Built on Relationships

Folks who work in sports routinely say it’s about the people you meet and the relationships you make. And dude could rattle off names all day. 

You want to talk charmed? That’s when you call your first Final Four for CBS in 1991, and the title game features a spectacular Duke forward named Grant Hill.  And this kid — now a retired NBA legend — ends up becoming your March Madness broadcast partner.

Legendary former Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, who won five NCAA men’s basketball championships that were called by Nantz, called the announcer “the voice of the Final Four,” noting that basketball fans can’t recall any of the tournament’s biggest moments over the past four decades without hearing Nantz’s play-by-play in their heads. 

“You’re the best who’s ever done this,” Krzyzewski added in a video tribute posted on Twitter, calling the announcer a “special friend.”

Pretty, pretty cool tribute to get. 

Or when your profession falls under a new kind of intense viral scrutiny in the social internet era, and talented peers like Al Michaels start getting skewered by “influencers” simply because they’re not calling the games with enough “excitement.” (Oh, boy.) 

As for Nantz, he remained charmed enough to be able to call his last NCAA title game a few miles down the block from his home, at Houston’s NRG Stadium, his network running a star-studded, tear-jerking career retrospective narrated by Ron Howard, and his 9-year-old daughter among those in attendance to watch it all.

Nantz says he doesn’t have — or want — a Twitter, Instagram or Facebook account. But leaving the stadium after UConn defeated San Diego State that night, his daughter gave him the “score,” anyway. 

“You’re trending No. 1 on Twitter. They love you.” 

HBO Max led a field of more than 40 streaming, services, networks and digital companies nominated for 2023 NAMIC Vision Awards, the diversity organization announced Tuesday morning (April 18).

HBO Max -- which will be rebranded to Max next month -- drew eight Vision Awards nominations to lead all distributors, according to the organization. The Vision Awards honor excellence in inclusive programming. 

ABC also garnered multiple nominations along with Disney Plus, Paramount Plus, Hulu, Disney Channel, Starz, AMC, CBS, PBS, Fuse, Food Network, CNN, Revolt, ESPN, TBS/TNT/TruTV, CBS Sports, World Channel and Sesame Workshop.

ABC shows Abbott Elementary, black-ish and The Wonder Years secured three of the five slots in the best comedy series award category, with Disney Plus’s Ms. Marvel and CBS Studios’s The Neighborhood rounding out the category.

On the best drama side, freshman series Dark Winds (AMC) and Women of the Movement (ABC) will battle veteran shows 9-1-1 (Fox), Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) and The Good Fight (Paramount Plus) for top honors.

Shows earning multiple nominations include Ms. Marvel, The Neighborhood, Dark Winds, Raven’s Home (Disney Channel), Taste the Culture (TBS/TNT/TruTV), Sesame Street (Sesame Workshop) and The Hair Tales (Hulu).

NAMIC said it will announce winners in each category this May.

Below are the list of nominees for the 2023 NAMIC Vision Awards:

Animation 

Craig of the Creek – Cartoon Network

Karma’s World – 9 Story Media Group

More Than I Want to Remember – MTV Entertainment Studios 

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Paramount Plus 

The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder – Disney Plus

Best Performance – Comedy

Frankie Quiñones (This Fool) – Hulu 

Iman Vellani (Ms. Marvel) – Disney Plus 

Omari Hardwick (Fantasy Football) – Paramount Plus

Raven-Symoné: (Raven’s Home) – Disney Channel 

Tichina Arnold: (The Neighborhood) – CBS Studios

Best Performance – Drama 

Cliff “Method Man” Smith: (Power Book II: Ghost) – Starz 

Courtney B. Vance: (61st Street) – AMC 

Patina Miller: (Power Book III: Raising Kana) - Starz

Viola Davis:(The First Lady) – Showtime

Zahn McClarnon: (Dark Winds) – AMC 

Children’s

Mira, Royal Detective – Disney Junior

Raven’s Home – Disney Channel 

Rise Up, Sing Out – Disney Junior 

Sesame Street – Sesame Workshop 

That Girl Lay Lay – Nickelodeon 

Comedy 

Abbott Elementary – Warner Bros. Television | ABC 

black-ish – ABC 

Ms. Marvel – Disney Plus

The Neighborhood – CBS Studios 

The Wonder Years – ABC 

Digital Media – Short Form 

Sesame Street’s #ComingTogether Word of the Day Series – Sesame Workshop 

Taste the Culture – tbs/TNT/truTV

TO BE FREE: Featuring Natasha Cloud – CBS Sports 

Historian’s Take: What is #LandBack? Inside New Native American TV Shows – PBS 

Why Am I Like This?: Where Does My Skin Color Come From? – PBS 

Documentary 

Aftershock – Hulu Asian American Stories of Resilience and Beyond – World Channel 

Fannie Lou Hamer’s America: An America ReFramed Special – American Documentary, Inc. and World Channel 

Invisible Valley - Fuse 

Master of Light – HBO Max 

Drama

9-1-1 - FOX 

Dark Winds – AMC 

Grey’s Anatomy – ABC 

The Good Fight – Paramount Plus 

Women of the Movement – ABC 

Lifestyle 

Delicious Miss Brown – Food Network 

Married to Real Estate – HGTV 

Outchef’d – Food Network 

Selena + Chef – HBO Max 

Spring Baking Championship: Easter – Food Network 

News/Informational 

GMA in Ghana/The ‘Black Panther’ Effect – Good Morning America 

The Color of Care – Smithsonian Channel 

The Hair Tales – Onyx Collective/OWN/Hulu 

Traffic Stop: Dangerous Encounters – CNN 

What Happened to Anton Black – Dateline 

Original Movie or Special 

A Gingerbread Christmas – Food Network 

A Rich Christmas – BET+ 

REVOLT x Michelle Obama: The Cross-Generational Conversation – REVOLT 

The Real Thirst Trap: Investigating Black America’s Water Crisis – REVOLT 

Unsound – Fuse 

Reality 

90 Day Fiancé – TLC 

Lizzo Watch Out For The Big Grrrls – Amazon 

Made From Scratch – Fuse 

We’re Here – HBO Max 

Why Not Us: Southern Dance – ESPN+ 

Reality – Social Issues 

Inside College Football: Mental Health – CBS Sports 

Taste the Culture – tbs/TNT/truTV SC 

Featured: Jackie to Me – ESPN 

SC Featured: Net Worth – ESPN 

The Hair Tales – Onyx Collective/OWN/Hulu 

Sports 

38 At the Garden – HBO Max 

After Jackie – History Channel 

Dream On – ESPN 

Say Hey, Willie Mays! – HBO Max 

Serena Williams: On Her Terms – CNN 

Variety/Talk Show 

Don’t Cancel Me with Amara La Negra – Fuse 

Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel – HBO Max

PAUSE with Sam Jay – HBO Max 

The Amber Ruffin Show – Peacock 

Yvonne Orji: A Whole Me. – HBO Max

CBS Sports said it plans to launch the Golazo Network,  a free 24-hour free streaming network dedicated to soccer on April 11.

The network will have live matches, taking advantage of the rights CBS Sports  has to UEFA Europa League, UEFA Europa Conference League, Serie A, NWSL, Concacaf national team competitions, Barclays Women’s Super League, Campeonato Brasileirão Série A, Scottish Professional Football League, Argentina Liga Profesional de Fútbol and the AFC Champions League.

It will also feature pre-and post-match breakdowns, magazine shows and films from Paramount Plus’ Stories from the Beautiful Game documentary series.

Golazo Network will also feature Morning Footy, a morning show hosted by  Susannah Collins, Charlie Davies, Nico Cantor and Alexis Guerreros

The network will be available on Paramount Plus, Pluto TV, the CBS Sports App and CBSSports.com at launch.

“The launch of the CBS Sports Golazo Network demonstrates the continued evolution of our industry-leading soccer coverage as we build on the incredible momentum we have created the past three years delivering authentic, informative, engaging and entertaining content across multiple platforms,” said Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports. “Led by our best-in-class studio shows and announcers, more than 2,400 live soccer matches a year and now a dedicated soccer streaming network, CBS Sports is the ultimate destination for soccer fans.” ■

ESPN and CBS Sports have reached long-term distribution deals with Conference USA, which features a mid-week schedule for the college conference's October football games beginning in 2023.

The deal calls for CBS Sports Network to air 18 of C-USA's college football and college basketball games annually, along with televising the conference’s football, men’s college basketball semifinal and championship games, the women’s basketball championship game as well as baseball and softball championship games.

“Conference USA has been a key partner for nearly two decades and we are pleased to extend our longstanding relationship,” CBS Sports Executive VP of Programming Dan Weinberg said in a statement. “As the primary television home of Conference USA, we are exc ited to showcase the conference’s best across sports throughout the year. This new deal adds even more live games and events to our CBS Sports Network lineup and we look forward to crowning champions in football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and softball for years to come.”

ESPN linear networks will carry eight football games per season, as well as a minimum of five regular season men’s basketball games and one regular season women’s basketball game. Streaming service ESPN Plus will stream over 450 live conference sporting events, including all additional regular season football games and the conference’s USA Olympic sports events, said officials.

“ESPN is thrilled to continue its association with Conference USA and improve its selections to offer better and more games than ever before,” ESPN VP of Programming and Acquisitions Nick Dawson said. “Our combination of industry-leading linear networks and digital platforms will feature hundreds of events across multiple sports each year, providing C-USA, its member institutions, student athletes and fans unmatched simplicity and access to their favorite C-USA teams and games.”

Also: Big 12 Conference Seals Stabilizing $2.28 Billion TV Rights Extension with ESPN and Fox

To create higher visibility for its college football games, the nine-team conference will offer its October games during the week, with CBS, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU sharing the weeknight schedule, according to the conference.

“This is a major step forward for Conference USA in terms of our multimedia rights as it relates to streamlined exposure, accessibility for our fans and greater financial resources for our members,” C-USA Commissioner Judy MacLeod said in a statement. “Building on our strong relationships with CBS and ESPN enabled us to provide increased exposure and consistent broadcast homes for our membership and fans as we continue to see the landscape of Conference USA and college athletics evolve.” ■

March Madness has slam-dunked the ad market.

CBS Sports and Turner, which carry the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, said their commercial inventory is sold out on TV and on digital platforms, generating record revenue for the event.

Prices were up double digits, with 30-second spots on early games costing a couple of hundred thousand dollars and commercials in the final game going for more than $2 million. Two years ago, the tournament generated nearly $1 billion in ad revenue, according to Kantar.

“We have had one hell of a selling season,” said John Bogusz, executive VP for ad sales at CBS Sports. “As a matter of fact, we’ve written more ad revenue in this tournament than we ever had before.”

“This is the earliest we’ve actually sold the tournament out,” added Jon Diament, executive VP and chief revenue officer for Turner Sports.

Diament noted that the sports market remains strong and that Turner and CBS were able to sell out the tournament without selling ads to sports books and other gambling outfits, which have been pouring money into television as betting becomes legalized. The NCAA bars gambling ads during its events.

There are about 20 major sponsors for March Madness, all returning from last year. Those big advertisers represent about 60% of the revenue the tournament generates. Also returning is AT&T, which sponsors the halftime show during games.

Big spending categories for the tournament include auto companies, insurance companies and fast food chains. Diament also noted that movie studios are back after the pandemic, as are travel advertisers.

Some advertisers will be running commercials 1 minute or so long. Others will be incorporating talent from Turner into ads specially made to appear during games.

Bogusz said he expects ratings to be strong for this year’s March Madness because the Blue Blood schools — Duke, Kansas, Kentucky — will be playing this year and they are proven audience draws. The field is also likely to be well-distributed geographically with strong teams in the West and southwestern areas of the country. 

“It’s also nice to have a story,” Bogusz added. "This is Coach K’s last year. If Duke advances that’s going to be a really good story and help draw big ratings.” ■

Nate Burleson, Noah Eagle and Gabrielle Nevaeh Green will return to the broadcast booth as Nickelodeon again televises a slime-filled, kid friendly version of the NFL Wild Card Playoff game on January 16.

Young Dylan, of Tyler Perry’s Young Dylan, will make his debut as a sideline reporter during the game.

The special presentation of the game by CBS Sports and Nickelodeon is part of parent company ViacomCBS’s deal with the NFL. More traditional coverage of the campaign will air on CBS and stream on Paramount Plus. The Nickelodeon version of the game will also be available on the NFL mobile app for free.

“The collaboration between the NFL, Nickelodeon, and CBS Sports for our first NFL Wild Card Game onNickelodeon was terrific and exceeded all expectations,” said CBS Sports’s Shawn Robbins, who will serve as coordinating producer, 

“We look forward to another exciting, slime-filled, Nick-ified presentation and the return of our talented team in the booth,” Robbins said. “Last season, Noah, Nate and Gabrielle connected so well with viewers with their chemistry, enthusiasm and knowledge, and we know our NFL Slimetime co-host Young Dylan will be an excellent addition as sideline reporter, completing this fun-filled crew.”

Last season’s inaugural NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon between the New Orleans Saints and Chicago Bears averaged 2.06 million viewers, making it the most-watched show on Nick in about four years.The game attracted about 30 million viewers across all platforms.

Burleson is co-host of CBS Mornings and a former NFL player and analyst.

Eagle is the 20-something son of sportscaster Ian Eagle and broadcasts college football games, serves as the Los Angeles Clippers’ play-by-play man and contributes to the Tennis Channel.

Green stars in Nick’s That Girl Lay Lay and All That.

Young Dylan and Burleson host NFL Slimetime, a weekly NFL series for kids and families, The show features Nick-ified highlights and game footage; youth football spotlights; special celebrity guest appearances; interviews with NFL players; the weekly awarding of the Nickelodeon Valuable Player (NVP) trophy; and entertaining segments highlighting players and teams on and off the field. NFL Slimetime airs  Wednesdays on Nickelodeon.

The NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon is produced by CBS Sports in association with Nickelodeon Productions. Sean McManus and Harold Bryant serve as Executive Producers of the NFL on CBS. CBS Sports’s Shawn Robbins is coordinating producer of the game along with producer, Ken Mack and director, Suzanne Smith. Production for Nickelodeon is overseen by Ashley Kaplan, executive VP, Nickelodeon & Awesomeness Unscripted & Digital Franchise Studio, ViacomCBS; Paul J. Medford, VP, unscripted current series; Luke Wahl, VP, Digital Studios; and Jennifer Bryson, VP, production, tentpoles, events & music & specials. ■

CBS is seeing a surge in advertiser demand for commercials in its NFL games as the league gets set to kick off a new season with increased interest in legal sports betting.

The network has a double-digit revenue gain on the scoreboard compared to last year, when the COVID-19 pandemic delayed advertising commitments to NFL games and to TV overall.

“It’s definitely a different landscape than it was a year ago,” said Jo Ann Ross, president and chief advertising revenue officer for ViacomCBS Domestic Advertising Sales. “People moved a lot earlier than they did last year, because there is pent-up demand.”

That pent-up demand drove TV’s overall upfront advertising market. A year ago, deals for the 2020-21 TV season didn’t close until around Labor Day because advertisers were uncertain about the economy. This year’s upfront moved quickly, with deals happening around Memorial Day.

Price increases in this year's upfront were the highest in years, with broadcast primetime up 19% to 22% on a cost-per-thousand viewers basis. Prices for NFL spots didn’t rise quite as much, but hikes were still in the teens. 

During last year’s regular season, CBS rang up ad sales of $609 million, according to Standard Media Index. Advertisers paid an average of about $377,420 for a 30-second spot during CBS’s regular season NFL telecasts. CBS tacked on another $400.7 million in revenue for its Super Bowl broadcast.

John Bogusz, executive VP for sports sales & marketing at CBS Sports said that the key ad categories responsible for the increased spending are led by the insurance companies, followed by telecom, the FAANG technology companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) and sports books.

“The gaming category being introduce this year really acted as a catalyst for the marketplace,” said Tony Taranto, senior VP sports sales, for CBS Sports. “It’s probably the most significant new category in a generation.”

Unlike the fantasy football category, which spent hundreds of million before flaming out, Taranto expects gaming to stay big for many years to come. And because NFL rules allow it to only sell a limited number of commercials to league recognized sports books, the category’s ad dollars are spilling over into other dayparts.

NFL advertisers will benefit from games streaming to cord-cutters via Paramount Plus. And another game will be simulcast this season on Nickelodeon. Only a handful of advertisers with products inappropriate for young viewers won’t appear on both the CBS and Nick telecasts, Bogusz said.

CBS Sports said long-time director Bob Fishman will retire following next year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.

In 50 years with CBS, Fishman has directed nearly every sport televised by the network and has been the lead director on college basketball since 1982. He also directs CBS Sports’ No. 2 NFL broadcast team.

CBS Sports said veteran director Mark Grant will succeed Fishman as lead director for college basketball.

Suzanne Smith, will be the director on the No. 2 NFL broadcast team. Smith, who started her TV career as a broadcast associate in 1983, is the only woman currently directing NFL games. 

“If there were a Mount Rushmore for sports directors, Bob Fishman would be front and center; he is one of the greatest directors in the history of sports television,” said Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports

Fishman was in the director’s chair when Michael Jordan hit the NCAA championship winning shot in 1982, when a tearful Tonya Harding broke her laces at the 1994 Olympics and when Joe Carter hit a walk-off homer in the 1983 World Series.

“While most viewers may not know his name, they are certainly familiar with his work as he has delivered some of the most iconic moments in sports over the past 40 years. Through his creativity, innovation and ability to perfectly capture the emotion of the moment, Bob has set the standard across the industry and created a legacy that will last for generations. There will never be another Bob Fishman. We thank him for all his outstanding contributions to CBS and wish him all the best in retirement,” McManus said.

While Fishman is retiring from CBS Sports, he plans to remain in film and television working on various projects, including documentaries.

Grant is a 16-time Emmy winner and had been with CBS Sports since 1998, directing NFL, college football, college basketball and golf telecasts.

“Mark and Suzanne are two of the most gifted and creative directors in sports. Suzanne’s talents are unmatched as she is equally outstanding directing live events, studio shows or taped programming and is highly respected by all who work with her. She is a pioneer and a wonderful leader and mentor to many across the industry,” McManus said.

“Mark is a true maestro when it comes to capturing the drama and excitement at events he is directing. He is a great leader and collaborator, who is never afraid to take risks and has set the standard for innovative directing,” he added. “Suzanne and Mark would be trusted with any assignment at CBS Sports, and we are thrilled they will play leading roles in our NFL and college basketball coverage.”

CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus has seen and worked through just about everything in his more than four-decade career as a TV sports executive, including a 25-year run as head of CBS Sports that started in 1996.

Yet no depth of experience or executive pedigree could have prepared McManus — or the television industry for that matter — for the unprecedented pandemic that has changed the face of the sports business and the world over the past 17 months. Yet McManus and CBS Sports absorbed the pandemic’s initial body blow in March 2020 and since then, he has steered the division’s ship through relatively uncharted waters. 

“I don’t care how experienced a workforce may be, they still take their lead and any resulting calm from shifting sands from their leader,” said James Brown, the Emmy-winning host of CBS’s The NFL Today. “As part of the calm that Sean works with, he had [pandemic] plans so well-articulated, detailed and executed, that he gave all of us a sense of calm in what was a very fluid environment.”  

Indeed, under the tutelage of McManus — and with great focus on safety protocols for employees and on-site production adjustments — CBS aired the PGA Tour’s Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, in June 2020, just three months after COVID-19 shut down all pro sports events. In doing so CBS Sports became one of the first major TV sports distributors to offer live programming, and it would go on to televise nearly a dozen consecutive weeks of golf events that provided a sense of normalcy to a very uncertain marketplace. 

“In an industry that is constantly evolving and shifting, Sean has been a constant — always thoughtful and committed — in helping us grow our business while promoting our players and tournaments and the positive impact they make in our communities,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said. “Sean McManus has been a tremendous partner and friend of the PGA Tour for more than 25 years at CBS and a close friend and confidant to me personally.” 

In March of 2021, McManus and CBS Sports focused attention on March Madness, the NCAA Division I men’s college basketball tournament. CBS Sports teamed with WarnerMedia’s Turner Sports to televise every game from within a bubble in Indianapolis, after the 2020 tournament was canceled due to the pandemic. 

“Sean’s influence on the sports media industry has been profound and I greatly value our relationship as we work in partnership on the NCAA tournament each year,” WarnerMedia News & Sports chairman Jeff Zucker said. 

McManus also kept his eye on the business side, expanding CBS Sports’s already vast live sports rights portfolio by securing rights deals in July 2020 for the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League that are expected to drive avid soccer fans to CBS as well as Paramount Plus, parent ViacomCBS’s streaming service. He also sought to reach out to new and diverse audiences with a March 2020 deal to televise National Women’s Soccer League games on CBS, CBS Sports Network and Paramount Plus, to go with the company’s WNBA deal for CBSSN completed in 2019. 

“They didn’t take the pandemic as a chance to stop and hold stock; they took it as an opportunity to figure out how to grow from here,” said sports analyst Lee Berke. “[McManus] had the foresight to go after content that would draw younger audiences, international audiences and tech-savvy audiences. As a result, they’ve been able to integrate and exploit streaming as part of their overall sports programming offerings.”

In March 2020 McManus oversaw a reported 10-year, $2.1 billion  extension of CBS’s deal with the National Football League. The pact keeps the NFL on the CBS broadcast network through 2033 and provides valuable content for other ViacomCBS properties, including Paramount Plus. 

As part of the deal, CBS will air the Super Bowl — the most-watched television event of the year — three times, on the heels of the network’s successful presentation of a pandemic-challenged Super Bowl LV this past February. 

“Sean and CBS have a love and respect for football and the NFL brand that spans decades,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said. “Sean understands our history and our partnership and recognizes the unique and important role the NFL plays for CBS, and our entire country.”

Son of the longtime ABC’s Wide World of Sports host Jim McKay, McManus’s reach and influence goes beyond the field and the rights bargaining table. During his run at CBS Sports, McManus has not only garnered accolades from the sports world, but also within his own ranks as a hands-on leader who values relationships with his colleagues and peers. 

“He’s as well-respected and as classy as anyone you’ll find in the industry,” said CBS Sports president David Berson. “Everything he does is with the utmost integrity, and he really prioritizes relationships, internally and with all of our partners.”  

Added Goodell: “Sean is always professional, and his long successful career always provides a unique and important perspective. More than anything, what has always impressed me about Sean is his focus on our partnership. He always works to construct solutions that benefit both of us.” 

McManus, who also has a five-year run as CBS News president on his impressive resumé, is the B+C/Multichannel News Sports Executive of the year for 2021. McManus recently spoke about his decades-long run in the TV sports business, the challenges of dealing with the pandemic and the future of the sports television business in a wide-ranging interview, an edited transcript of which follows. 

B+C: When the sports industry was in the midst of the pandemic last summer, did you think that we would be where we are today with regard to the return of live sports events? 

Sean McManus: In early March, when sports were first stopped, we thought we might be out of the office for three months or so. Nobody thought it was going to be 14 or 15 months later that we were eventually going to be back in the office. But during the pandemic we did some remarkable television. We were the first ones to come back with major live sports coverage with the PGA Tour in June of 2020, and we did 11 straight weeks of golf from there. It was difficult and it was costly. We have all sorts of protocols but we got it done and we were proud of what we did this year during a pandemic. We completed a full season of NFL football and college football, and we did a Super Bowl. We produced a Final Four. We did The Masters and we did hundreds of hours of live and studio programming on both CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network. 

We’ve learned a lot of lessons — we’ve learned to be very agile and efficient, and we’ve changed the way we did a lot of our programming. In all the years I’ve been involved in television sports, the run that we had really starting when the pandemic began in March of 2020 to today, I think we’ve done some of the best work that we’ve ever done. And I’m as proud of the performance of the CBS team as I have been of any team that I’ve worked with, going back to 1977 when I started in this business at ABC. It’s been the most challenging, but also the most satisfying, run that I’ve ever been able to be involved in.

MCN: Let’s fast-forward to today. How important is sports content to the legacy, success and future of the CBS network brand? 

SM: Sports is playing an increasingly more important role in the world of media. It’s the highest-rated programming; it’s the most demographically attractive programming, and in many ways it is what is holding the traditional pay TV ecosystem in place. When you own a television network, it’s almost impossible for that network to be successful without major sports — with the NFL being the most important sport — but everything else, including college football and basketball and golf, is also incredibly important. As we are continuing to fight to try to aggregate an audience, whether it be on streaming, direct-to-consumer or whether it be on traditional television, sports is driving that distribution. It’s what gives us the most leverage with the cable, telephone and satellite operators, and as we move forward with ViacomCBS, it’s going to be increasingly more important. It’s also the No. 1 driver of sign-ups and retention for Paramount Plus, which is an enormously important priority for ViacomCBS. So, sports are going to continue to be important. It’s why we completed the recent NFL deal that we did, which will take us into the next decade. You do not want to have a broadcast network without NFL football. 

MCN: Let’s talk about the new NFL deal. The content distribution landscape has changed since CBS’s previous NFL deal was struck. How does the new NFL deal reflect the market changes going forward and will we ever see exclusive NFL games on Paramount Plus?  

SM: Well, already the NFL is carried on the [Paramount Plus] main and less-expensive tier, so the NFL already plays a really important part on Paramount Plus. But I don’t foresee right now a scenario where there’s a lot of other NFL content or exclusive NFL content on Paramount Plus, but the door is always open. We’re committed to working with our partners at the NFL and with our affiliates to make sure that we protect the exclusivity in every market, but also hopefully find ways to expand that distribution onto Paramount Plus, but there are no plans right now. The exclusivity is still a very important element for all of our affiliates and all of our owned-and-operated stations.

Quite frankly, the broad distribution is important to us and to the NFL. I’ve often said one of the reasons the NFL remained so popular is that it is so broadly distributed. Every NFL game is seen live in the home markets, even when the games are on ESPN; the two markets that are involved in the game have those over-the-air broadcast rights in the individual markets. So the broad distribution is still driving the business for us.

MCN: Will we see similar sports offerings like last year’s NFL game on Nickelodeon across other ViacomCBS brands? 

SM: I will say that we’re a very different company than we were when we were just CBS. We had a great portfolio of events, but we weren’t able to program them and promote them and brand them as effectively as we are now with the incredible assets that ViacomCBS has.

The Nickelodeon game is a great example of that. We did a separate telecast in the late afternoon wildcard game last year, which was met with unbelievably rave reviews. It was enjoyed by older fans and younger fans alike.

I think that’s just the beginning of scratching the surface of how we can use the various ViacomCBS platforms to really take better advantage of the great sports properties that we have. When you look at the promotional opportunities, whether it’s to young kids on Nickelodeon, or whether it’s to a  slightly older audience on a VH1 or MTV, or to an African-American audience on BET, we have remarkable assets that I think are going to enable us to be even more aggressive in the sports marketplace going forward. 

MCN: CBS Sports has aggressively pursued international soccer rights, including the UEFA Champions League. How do those rights fit into a broader multiplatform strategy?

SM: A couple of things — one, we want Paramount Plus to be a must-have for the soccer fan in this country, and I think we are a long way towards that goal. That includes the UEFA Champions League; Serie A; the U.S. soccer games that we have rights to; the Brazilian Soccer League, where we have rights; and CONCACAF, where we have rights. If you’re a soccer fan and in this country, you’re pretty frustrated if you don’t have Paramount Plus. It shows up in the numbers in terms of sign-ups and retention. It’s been a remarkably successful strategy in retaining and attracting audiences to Paramount Plus. 

Could I see us finding other sports that would serve that role on Paramount Plus? I do, but the soccer audience is in some ways uniquely complimentary to Paramount Plus. It’s a young, very diverse avid soccer fan that will find some big-time prestigious soccer programming on Paramount Plus. So we’re very happy with the results of our international soccer properties, and it’s going to remain a high priority of ours going forward.

MCN: Also in your portfolio are women’s sports with the WNBA and National Women’s Soccer League. What value does women’s sports offer to a live sports distribution company like CBS Sports? 

SM: We want to have as wide a funnel as we possibly can, and women’s sports fits into that strategy. The NWSL and the WNBA are very important for us. We’re the only network that does a female-hosted and produced talk show, We Need To Talk, which airs regularly, both on CBS broadcast network and CBSSN. So it’s part of our strategy to be a full service organization that attracts a large and diverse group of sports fans, including young people, older people, men and women — we’re trying to appeal to everybody and I think it’s working. We’ve been very strategic in the way we’ve gone about this plan and it’s really showing dividends right now. People are starting to notice the aggressiveness that we have in our programming across all of our platforms.

MCN: In terms of on-air talent, how important is diversity in front of and behind the camera from your perspective?

SM: It’s critical. We want our on-air talent to reflect the population of America. We’ve done a good job so far, but we have a lot more work to do for sure. I’m proud of the fact that we have some amazing female talent across all of our sports, whether it’s golf with [CBS golf reporter] Amanda Balionis or football and basketball with [CBS Sports broadcaster] Tracy Wolfson. [CBS Sports reporter] A.J. Ross is terrific, as is [We Need To Talk co-host] Katrina Adams — I could go down the list of women who really are fantastic broadcasters. We’ve made a lot of progress in the area of Black on-air talent for our shows and we’re well-represented, whether it’s JB (James Brown), who I think is the best studio host in America; Nate Burleson, who has been an enormous success on the NFL Today show; Charles Davis is now our No. 2 NFL game analyst; Greg Gumbel, who is the first Black man ever to call a Super Bowl and still has a prominent position at CBS Sports. I say that to say that we’ve made some progress but we have to do a better job going forward. 

MCN: CBS Sports over the past year or so has been aggressive in securing deals for live sports content, but recently you walked away from a potential IndyCar deal. What was it about that property that didn’t allow it to fit into CBS Sports’s portfolio?

SM: I love IndyCar racing. I grew up working on the Indy 500 and I was very involved with CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) when it was launched on NBC in the early 1980s. We simply didn’t have room in our programming schedule for it. We have so much golf, college basketball and other programming that we just couldn’t find the windows on broadcast television that were necessary to do the deal. We never really even ended up talking economics or any other elements only because we just didn’t have the space for it. We’re committed to golf as an example on the weekend of the Indy 500 — we just can’t pre-empt our golf schedule because it’s a programming obligation we have. 

I had a couple of really nice conversations with [retired race car driver] Roger Penske who is a good friend who I’ve known since the early 1980s. It just wasn’t a deal that  we could accommodate from a programming standpoint. 

I am very excited about SRX [Superstar Racing Experience], our primetime series that recently concluded. It was met with rave reviews in the racing community. The drivers love it, and the shows were incredibly well-produced. It marked the first time that we’ve done major live car racing in a couple of decades, and it worked out really well for us. So we’re excited. 

MCN:  We talked a little about televising sports during the pandemic. How difficult was it to make the necessary adjustments from a production standpoint while negotiating the many date changes that pro sports leagues were forced to make due to the pandemic? 

SM: It was remarkable. We had to do a Masters in November — no one had ever seen the course on television in November. We had to work out a deal with the NFL to clear out a window early in the afternoon for The Masters, but it was so much fun. Since we knew we weren’t going to have any patrons, we were able to introduce some new technology that just blew people away. The fly cam on the 16th hole showed not only the 16th hole in a way that had never been seen before, but it also showed the relationship between the 15th green and the 16th hole. We had live drones flying around which, again, showed the course as it’s never been seen before.

After The Masters we went into the Super Bowl, which is one of the most difficult events to produce to begin with just because of the magnitude of it. Then we had to socially distance everything from our edit suites to our studios. We built a little city in Tampa, but it was built to the specifications of a pandemic, which was incredibly complicated. It took a lot of space, and money. Our control trucks and our mobile units had to be totally reconfigured again, and you’re not talking about two or three mobile units … you’re talking about numerous mobile units for videotape and audio and everything else. But we made it work. The only thing we didn’t get was a really good, exciting, thrilling game. It didn’t live up to expectations — if you were to ask at the beginning of the year what match up you wanted to see in the Super Bowl, it would have featured Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. That’s what we got, but unfortunately, we didn’t get a close game, but the production was remarkable. 

Then we went into the college basketball season and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which was obviously contested all in Indianapolis. Again, very stringent safety protocols for both CBS and Turner Sports, and it came off without a hitch. We had a bubble that was effective and safe for our production people and our announcers and management personnel. The [Final Four] semifinal games were as good a semifinals as we’ve ever seen. Once again, the championship game, unfortunately, didn’t live up to expectations. I worry about things I can control, and everything that we could have controlled in the NCAA men’s tournament and the Super Bowl I couldn’t be more proud of. And then we went down the following week to Augusta National with our 50 mobile units and all the different feeds. In terms of complexity of production, The Masters is probably the most complex. 

MCN: How do you see CBS Sports evolving now as we move closer to some sense of normalcy within the TV sports industry?  

SM: I think our strategy and our goal is to make sure that our content can be consumed anyway the customer wants to consume it. If he wants to watch it on broadcast television, he can do that; if he or she wants to watch it on a streaming service, they can do that with Paramount. Plus. If somebody wants to do it on a laptop or an iPad we want to make sure they can watch it on that platform also. So making sure that we’re reaching as much of the audience as we can is a high priority of ours. There’s no higher priority at ViacomCBS right now than Paramount Plus, and we’re going to continue to invest in sports to grow that platform. It’s also incredibly important for us to reach the widest possible audience that we can, and broadcast television is still the best way to do that. We are big believers in broadcast television — we think it’s a really good business from a financial standpoint and a programming standpoint. The NFL likes being on America’s most-watched network, as does the NCAA, the PGA Tour and PGA Championship. So we need to be a full-service broadcast network that is also reaching what is generally a younger and more diverse audience on different kinds of platforms. We’re trying to thread the needle. The most revenue is still coming from broadcast television, with the sale of commercial units and sponsorships, but that’s beginning to tip a little bit also, the other platforms are quickly catching up.

MCN: Is there room in that distribution model for CBS Sports Network? One of the network’s cable sports competitors, NBCSN, is shutting down after this year. How does CBSSN fit into the overall business strategy? 

SM: It’s a great companion to the broadcast network. I’m proud of the programming we put on there. We have resisted spending hundreds of millions of dollars in rights for major sports properties, but we have excellent programming whether it’s college basketball, college football the WNBA, some of UEFA games or other soccer programming. Studio programming is very successful for us — it gives us a live presence five days a week. So we’re fully committed to CBS Sports Network, and I think our strategy is the right one, which is to gradually improve the quality of the events which we are doing on a regular basis.

MCN: If we’re sitting here a year from now talking about the TV sports industry, does it look more like 2020 or 2019? 

SM: I think a lot of that depends on what happens to the country with respect to the pandemic, but all the arrows that I see are pointing up toward a return to normality. I can’t predict what’s going to happen with the virus; I’m hoping that the widespread vaccinations will continue so that we can really get a handle on moving forward in a regular way. So I think a year from now I’m hoping and I’m confident that we are going to be much, much closer to the way we’d been traditionally with our CBS Sports productions across all of our platforms.

CBS Sports producer Gareth Hughes passed away July 30 in Manhattan. He was 41. Hughes, with eight Emmys to his credit, suffered from bile duct cancer.

Hughes worked on the NFL, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, The Masters golf tournament and the Army-Navy football game, among other sports events. 

“He had this rare ability to see the absolute seedling of an idea through to the final product,” Alanna Campbell, CBS Sports feature producer, told The New York Times, “whether it was a show, a story or a technically complex shoot.”

Hughes was born in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and grew up mainly in Oxford, Ohio. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer when he was 11 months old, the Times reported. He attended Skidmore and started in television working with the New England Patriots. 

Hughes joined CBS in 2009 and worked on live events, documentaries and 60 Minutes Sports on Showtime. He also produced CBS special In the Huddle With Tony Romo. CBS Sports execs describe him as an avid mentor to younger staffers. 

For CBS’s Super Bowl LV pregame show earlier this year, Hughes produced a feature that honored essential workers over the previous year. It was titled “Essential: An Ode to COVID’s Frontline Workers.”

CBS Sports said it has reached a multiplatform agreement for exclusive U.S. English-language rights to Concacaf national team soccer properties, Concacaf Qualifiers for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023, the Concacaf Men’s Nations League and the Concacaf Women’s Nations League.

As part of the deal, ViacomCBS’ streaming service Paramount Plus will carry more than 200 Concacaf national team matches live, including at least 80 Concacaf Women’s World Cup Qualifying matches and more than 100 Concacaf Women’s Nations League contests. Select matches will also be available to air on CBS Sports linear platforms.

This is the latest in a flurry of soccer deals the streaming service has reached in the past several months. In March, Paramount Plus said it acquired the rights to air nearly 80 Concacaf Men’s World Cup Qualifiers for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and landed U.S. rights to Italy’s Serie A matches.  Earlier the programmer struck rights deals with the UEFA Champions League, Europa League, next season’s Europa Conference League, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), and the top leagues in both Brazil and Argentina Brasilero Serie A and Liga Profesional de Fútbol. 

Also Read: Live Sports Events are Moving to Streaming 

“We are excited to continue the expansion of CBS Sports’ soccer portfolio across both the men’s and women’s game, and look forward to delivering competitive Concacaf national team action on Paramount Plus and CBS Sports platforms,” CBS Sports Digital EVP and general manager Jeffrey Gerttula said in a press release. “Paramount Plus has truly become a year-round soccer destination, attracting a growing fanbase that’s hungry to watch the U.S. Men’s and Women’s National Teams along with a variety of international soccer competitions.”

Coverage will begin in June with the Concacaf Men’s Nations League Finals in Denver. Additional coverage specifics around the June 3 Semifinal matches of United States vs. Honduras and Mexico vs. Costa Rica, along with details of the Final and Third-Place matches on June 6 will be announced in the coming weeks.

“We are extremely pleased to begin this new partnership with CBS Sports which starts with our first ever Concacaf Nations League Finals and includes our game changing new women’s national team competitions,” said Concacaf General Secretary Philippe Moggio  in a press release. “CBS Sports has an excellent track record of delivering outstanding live sports coverage, and their new Paramount Plus platform is increasingly popular with fans. We look forward to working together to elevate men’s and women’s national team football in the Concacaf region.”

CBS Sports will continue coverage with the 2022-2023 Concacaf Men’s Nations League and will carry the inaugural Concacaf Women’s Nations League beginning in 2023. Coverage plans for the Concacaf Women’s World Cup Qualifiers will be announced ahead of the competition beginning in the fall.

It’s pretty rare when a team owner gets called out -- positively -- when a TV sports rights deal is announced by a league and a programmer, but that’s what happened in ViacomCBS’s three-year deal for exclusive U.S. rights to stream games from Italian soccer league Serie A. But then again, Rocco Commisso isn’t just any team owner.

ViacomCBS made good on its promise to double down on soccer rights on March 25, agreeing to a three-year deal to carry the league on its fledgling streaming service Paramount Plus as well as CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network. While the terms of the deal weren’t announced, reports have put the value at about $200 million over the three years.

In announcing the deal there were the usual niceties -- both sides praised each other’s foresight in agreeing to the transaction -- but further down in the release, Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo personally thanked the league’s American club owners, specifically pointing out Mediacom Communications chairman and CEO Rocco Commisso, who also owns the ACF Fiorentina team, for his help in landing the agreement. 

“Today it is not a point of arrival, but rather the beginning of a process of investments in human resources and editorial contents to support the continued growth of Serie A in the North America territory,” De Siervo said in the release. “This is the result of the work of the last 18 months and of the increasing number of American owners who have decided to invest in our teams. Finally, I would like to thank the President of Fiorentina Rocco Commisso for his important contribution to achieve this agreement.”

Rights Cost Went Up 30%

The deal that Paramount Plus signed was a 30% increase over the league’s last TV contract with ESPN Plus. ESPN was a late round bidder along with one other unnamed company,  but ultimately decided that the price was little too rich for its tastes.

ViacomCBS has been ultra-aggressive in snapping up soccer rights. In addition to the Serie A deal, the programmer has signed rights deals with the UEFA Champions League, Europa League, next season’s Europa Conference League, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), Brasileiro Série A and Liga Profesional de Fútbol (the top leagues in both Brazil and Argentina), and various Concacaf matches. 

At ViacomCBS’s Feb. 24 Investor Day, CBS Entertainment chief George Cheeks said the programmer was “doubling down” on soccer rights, adding the sport presented the best opportunity to grab young eyeballs for both the linear and streaming networks.

“As we look to the future, we are making soccer a core pillar of sports exclusively available on Paramount Plus,” Cheeks said at the Investor Day. 

According to reports, Paramount had initially bid around $142 million for the rights, but bumped up that offer considerably in later rounds. 

While those reports didn’t offer an explanation for the increased offer, probably just chalking it up to normal bidding dynamics, Commisso may have provided a subtle nudge.

As the head of the fifth largest cable operator in the U.S., Mediacom obviously has a long-time professional relationship with Paramount Plus parent ViacomCBS and its CEO Bob Bakish. But Commisso and Bakish’s connection goes a little bit deeper. Both are graduates of Columbia University, and both left that Ivy League institution with degrees in industrial engineering and MBAs.   

“Rocco and I have enjoyed a long and productive professional relationship,” Bakish said in an email message.  “We look forward to working with Serie A and enhancing our strong lineup of live soccer coverage on Paramount+.” 

Commisso, who was born in Calabria, Italy and came to the U.S. with his family when he was 12 years old, is a huge soccer fan: he was co-captain of his alma mater’s men’s soccer squad in 1970, helping lead the school to compete in its first NCAA men’s soccer tournament that year. The Mediacom founder has been a huge booster of Columbia University soccer, donating millions of dollars to the school for its stadium and soccer programs. In 2017, Commisso dipped his toe into club ownership, buying the North American Soccer League’s (NASL) New York Cosmos. In 2019 he purchased ACF Fiorentina. ACF Fiorentina currently is ranked 14th out of 20 teams in Serie A. The Cosmos have been on pause since the COVID-19 outbreak. 

In an interview, Commisso said he imparted some of his soccer knowledge to Bakish, who he said is “a great guy” and a savvy negotiator in his own right. Talks for the U.S. rights to Serie A lasted about 18 months and  involved several parties. 

“We had a discussion,” Commisso said, adding that the conversation was mainly around the state of Italian soccer. “I was rooting for him to win it. Did he come up with every single dollar that I thought was the right ask? No. Was he better than everybody else? Yes. It would be fair to say that through my involvement, one: he got the bid and two: he increased the bid.”

Commisso has been pretty generous with his knowledge of the soccer game. He counseled Parma owner Kyle Krause, CEO of Krause Group, when he was considering buying the Parma team. Krause Group is based in Des Moines, Iowa, also one of Mediacom’s largest markets, and owns Italian wineries and hospitality businesses, as well as real estate and more than 400 gas station/convenience stores in the Midwest. Krause bought the Parma team in 2020. 

“He picked my brain and I helped him make his mind up,” Commisso said. 

Serie A is considered one of the “Big Five'' leagues in European football: The English Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga and France’s Ligue 1 are the others. So landing the U.S. rights is a bit of a coup for Paramount. It doesn’t hurt that one of the most recognizable stars in soccerdom, Cristiano Ronaldo, plays for Turin-based Juventus, the 2019-20 Serie A champion.  

Matches Due Mostly On Paramount Plus

ViacomCBS hasn’t said yet how it will parse the games between the streaming and linear services. But it’s probably a good bet that the Ronaldo connection will be played up when it starts airing Serie A games in August. There are a lot of games to watch, which should only raise the profile of the league in general. Paramount Plus, the enlarged former CBS All Access, has the rights to air 400 matches each year -- 388 Serie A games, 25 Coppa Italia matches and the Supercoppa Italiana match (where the winners of Serie A and Coppa Italia meet in a what is akin to the Italian soccer Super Bowl) -- with select matches to be televised on CBS Sports and CBS Sports Network. 

But whatever the ultimate lineup, Commisso said the exposure could only be good for Italian soccer. 

“In Italy, they give some of the bigger teams preferential treatment when there are multiple games during the day,” Commisso said. “Not always but for the most part, they’ll make the last game the Game of the Week. We have games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I’m sure they [Paramount] will utilize Ronaldo. If I were them I would do the same thing.”

Commisso said in Italian soccer, TV money isn’t split evenly among teams -- bigger teams get bigger shares -- but the additional cash will help the smaller clubs get better players and improve facilities. Adding to the coffers is the sale of Italian TV rights to the league, which went to streaming sports service DAZN for about €2.5 billion ($2.95 billion) over three years. DAZN bested Comcast-owned Sky, which had owned Serie A rights in Italy since 2003. Sky, according to reports, agreed to pay about €70 million ($82 million) for non-exclusive rights for a smaller package of games. 

Commisso also is encouraged by the growing number of American owners in Italian soccer. Today there are five clubs owned by Americans in the 20-team league: A.C. Milan, A.S. Roma, A.C.F. Fiorentina, Parma and Spezia Calcio. A sixth club, Bologna F.C., is owned by a Canadian.

That influx of American ownership has occurred only recently. In 2017, only one club, Roma, was U.S.-owned. Commisso said the new blood has been good for the league, bringing in a fresh perspective as well as money. Italian soccer, he added, has been held back by the condition of its stadiums, which are generally owned by the towns and cities the clubs play in and are leased back to the teams. But that means improvements have been few and far between. Commisso said the stadium where his club plays, Stadio Artemio Franchi, was first opened in 1931. And he believes as other Italian owners look to sell their clubs in the future, American businessmen should take advantage of the opportunity. Juventus's 10-year-old Allianz Stadium is one of the unusual club-owned arenas.

“I think there are going to be other sales taking place in the next 12 months,” Commisso said. “Is it going to be Americans? I can't say that for sure. But the fact that you have five American owners is changing things. We bring a new way of looking at things, some people don’t like it, and we have a big push to improve the infrastructure. We all want to get things done on the infrastructure side.”

Commisso himself is in the throes of building a new state-of-the-art sports complex near Stadio Artemio Franchi, to be called Viola Park, an €85 million ($99.6 million) project that would include training facilities and fields for men's and women's senior and youth soccer teams.  The project, which began construction earlier this year, has recently hit some regulatory snags.

Still, Commisso is confident that he will eventually get the project through.

“I’m a tough guy when it comes to most things,” Commisso said. “I’m not doing this to make money, I’m doing this to give back to soccer what soccer has done for me and to give back to my native Italy. It’s very hard for other people to understand that, but it is a fact.” 

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is inspiring March Madness among sponsors and generating record advertising revenue for CBS and Turner Sports.

“We’re virtually sold out,” said John Bogusz, executive VP, sports sales and marketing, CBS Network Sales, speaking on a call with reporters Wednesday. 

Bogusz said that for the big ticket items, all of the commercials in one of the Final Four games are already spoken for, and there are only a couple of units left in the other Final Four games and the championship game.

Also Read: CBS’s Sean McManus on March Madness: I’m Not Worrying About Ratings Being

A handful of spots are being reserved in case the trend to lower ratings seen in college basketball so far this year, as well as in the Super Bowl and the NBA All Star game also impacts the tournament, he said.

But ad sales at higher prices than last year have produced record revenue, said Jon Diament, executive VP, chief revenue officer, Turner Sports.

During the 2019 tournament, CBS and Turner Sports generated an estimated $655.1 million in ad revenue, according to Standard Media Index.

Diament said several new corporate sponsors signed up, helping to boost the revenue total. The new partner level sponsors are Aflac, Invesco and Great Clips.

Invesco and Great Clips actually signed up for last year’s tournament, which was one of the first events canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aflac is brand new this year.

The Champion-level sponsors for the tournament are AT&T, Capital One and Coca-Cola. The partner level sponsors are Aflac, Buffalo Wild Wings, Buick, GEICO, Great Clips, Invesco, Lowe’s, Marriott, Nabisco, Nissan, Pizza Hut, Reese’s, Uber Eats, Unilever, and Wendy’s.

Those are generally multi-year deals, which means the event is nearly half sold out when CBS and Turner sales people hit the street each year. Those sponsorships include integrated media, marketing rights, activations and hospitality.

The big categories driving increased spending this year are insurance, auto, telecom, financial services and restaurants.

After the pandemic, both quick service and casual dining restaurants are advertising again, Diament said.

A couple of movie studios are also advertising plus streaming services, including Paramount Plus from CBS parent company ViacomCBS, which was a big Super Bowl advertiser, and HBO Max from Turner parent AT&T.

While ratings have been challenged for linear networks, spending on sports has continued to be good, said Bogusz. Diament added that Turner has been seeing record-setting revenue for its NBA season.

During the games, viewers will see new, custom contextual ads, many featuring the networks’ sports talent; in-game branding during marquee moments and commentary, made-for-TV moments and amplified social moments.

In all, 100 different advertisers will be involved in the tournament and about 90% of the advertisers buying linear ads will also be on digital platforms including NCAA March Madness Live.  

“We’re starting to see more of a trend of folks coming in and buying their inventory earlier because they’re concerned about  getting blocked out of the prime positions,” Diament added.

One thing that will make this year’s tournament different is smaller out-of-home viewership with fewer people watching in bars and in offices. For the past few years, out-of-home viewing has been included in the audience numbers on which ad sales are based.

“We expect the Nielsen number to reflect strong viewership at home,” Diament said. “There won’t be a need for a boss button.”

Despite pandemic viewership dropping for big sports events including the Super Bowl and the NBA All Star Game, CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said he expected the ratings for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament to be “perfectly fine.”

Speaking on a Zoom call with reporters Wednesday, McManus said he doesn’t make predictions about ratings. But he noted that over the 10 years that CBS has partnered with Turner Sports to televise the tournament, “sometimes the ratings are a little bit down, and sometimes they’re a little bit up, and that depends on how close the games are and which teams advance throughout the tournament.”

Read Also: March Madness Tournament a Go in Indiana

He added: "I’m not hanging my head and worrying about the fact that ratings may be down. I think if we get a good tournament, I think the ratings will be perfectly fine.”

One barometer of the likely level of viewership for the tournament has been advertising sales, “Our sales have been remarkably strong,” McManus said, with commercials in the games just about sold out. “I think the advertisers will be satisfied with the amount of men and women who see their commercials,” he said.

McManus and Jeff Zucker, chairman of sports and news at AT&T’s WarnerMedia, noted that last year’s NCAA basketball tournament was among the first events cancelled because of the pandemic and that they were looking forward to its return.

Read Also: March Madness Live Adds Features as Tourney Returns

Because of the pandemic, this year’s tournament will be held entirely in Indiana. There will be a limited number of people in the stands and production crews will be taking precautions to avoid catching and spreading the virus.

This will be the 10th year CBS and Turner have shared the Tournament. CBS will have this year's Final Four and Championship game.

Some popular teams--such as Kentucky and Duke--may not qualify for this year’s tournament, which could impact ratings.

“You want the big name brands obviously in the tournament if you can have them but I think what happens every year is that stories emerge and it's the stories that emerge that really make up the make up the tournament and keep people interested,” McManus said. 

“The traditional powerhouses . . . help your ratings, but we’re going to focus on the teams that are in there and the stories that are in there. And if the tournament develops as it always seems to, I think we’ll do fine from a viewership standpoint,” he said. "There's still plenty of stories and plenty of high-profile teams that are going to be showcased on Turner and CBS.”  

Irv Cross, an NFL standout who went on to be a game analyst for CBS Sports, died of heart disease in Minnesota Feb. 28. He was 81. 

Cross was the first Black full-time television analyst for a network sports show, according to the New York Times. 

"All of us at CBS Sports are saddened by the news of Irv Cross' passing," CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said in a statement on ESPN.com. "Irv was a pioneer who made significant contributions to the storied history and tradition of CBS Sports and, along with Phyllis George and Brent Musburger, set the standard for NFL pregame shows with The NFL Today." 

Cross played for the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Rams. After four years as a game analyst at CBS Sports, he was promoted to pregame show The NFL Today, where he spent 15 years. Cross worked alongside Brent Musberger, Phyllis George and Jimmy Snyder on the show. 

After Cross left the program, he went back to being a game analyst at CBS Sports. 

Cross grew up in Hammond, Indiana. He was a wide receiver and defensive back at Northwestern. Playing with the Eagles, he made the NFL’s Pro Bowl in 1964 and 1965. After five seasons with the Eagles, he was traded to the Rams. He played in Los Angeles for three years before returning for one more year in Philadelphia. 

While playing in Philadelphia, Cross was a weekend TV sports anchor. 

After his television career, Cross was an athletic director at Idaho State University and Macalester College. 

The Times said Cross, who sustained numerous concussions in his playing career, will donate his brain to the Boston University Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center. 

Nickelodeon will be part of CBS Sports’ Super Bowl festivities, with the kids network airing its own pre-game show that will premiere on Feb. 5 and re-air multiple times over the weekend.

Nickelodeon last month simulcast its own version of an NFL playoff game that also aired on CBS, featuring slime-filled touchdown celebrations and rules explanations by young celebrities including Iain Armitage, star of CBS’ Young Sheldon.

Also Read: CBS Sports, Nickelodeon Pair Up on NFL Playoff Game

The Nick NFL presentation was Nick’s most-watched program among total viewers in nearly four years and was the top-rated show with kids 2-11 and kids 6-11.

Also Read: ViacomCBS Says Super Bowl Ads Are ‘Virtually Sold Out’

Both CBS and Nickelodeon are part of ViacomCBS, which is demonstrating its reach over multiple platforms as part of an effort to maintain its relationship with the NFL and its powerful programming.

The Nickelodeon Super Duper Bowl Pregame Spectacular half-hour show will star Gabrielle Nevaeh Green and Lex Lumpkin. It will feature Super Bowl fun facts, season highlights and predictions in Nick’s style with special guests.

On Super Sunday CBS’s pre-game show, which airs from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET, will feature a specially produced segment of Nickelodeon’s game show Unfiltered. In the game, Green and Lumpkin will try to guess the identity of  one of the NFL’s biggest stars playing in the big game, who will be disguised.

A Nick-style highlights package will air as part of CBS’s half-time show. 

“We are thrilled to continue our collaboration with Nickelodeon and build off the success and overwhelming positive response from the production of the NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon,” said Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports. “The ‘Nick-ified’ elements in our pregame and halftime programming, along with the second screen digital and social highlights, will be the perfect complement to CBS Sports’ first-class broadcast of Super Bowl LV, allowing us to reach an even wider audience on Super Bowl Sunday across a variety of platforms as we continue to showcase the power of the ViacomCBS family.”

The Super Duper Super Bowl Pregame Spectacular is executive produced by Ashley Kaplan, Luke Wahl and Shawn Robbins, and co-executive produced by Barry Smoler. Jennifer Bryson serves as executive in charge of production.

CBS Sports said it plans to stream the Super Bowl across multiple platform, including its subscription streaming service CBS All Access.

Broadcast coverage of Super Bowl LV will also stream unauthenticated and for free on the CBSSports.com, the CBS Sports app. The big game will also be free on Verizon properties including Yahoo Sports,  on NFL digital properties and NFL team mobile properties.

The Super Bowl will also be available in Spanish on ESPN Deportes and ESPN digital platforms.

Also Read: CBS Makes Post-Super Bowl Plans

“We’re excited to broaden the availability of our Super Bowl LV stream this year, and we look forward to building on the incredibly strong momentum NFL football is driving on CBS All Access as a cornerstone of the extensive live sports offerings available on the service,” said Jeff Gerttula, executive VP and general manager, CBS Sports Digital.

Parent company ViacomCBS is rebranding CBS All Access as Paramount Plus on March 4. The Super Bowl will provide a huge marketing platform for the streaming service.

Also Read: CBS, NFL Top 2020 By Ad Impressions

CBS Sports HQ, the streaming sports network, will be live from Tampa,  Super Bowl city, during the week, leading up to the game, with on-site programming and reports. It will have pre-game coverage and post-game analysis and highlights.

Last year, the Super Bowl drew 100.7 million including 2.6 million streaming viewers, up 31% from the prior year. Last year’s game was on Fox, but live streams were available on CBS All Access, CBSSports.com, the CBS Sports app and other venues.

CBS Sports and Nickelodeon are teaming up on the NFL wild card playoff game Jan. 10. The NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon will feature what the pair calls “kid-focused content and Nick-themed elements throughout, including a special halftime presentation, guest reporters and original on-field graphics” and more, including slime. 

CBS will air the game as well. 

Play-by-play announcer Noah Eagle will be joined by CBS Sports analyst Nate Burleson and Nick star Gabrielle Nevaeh Green (All That, Nickelodeon’s Unfiltered) in the booth to call the game, and Nick star Lex Lumpkin will be reporter. Nickelodeon’s coverage begins with The SpongeBob SportsPants Countdown Special at 4 p.m. ET, hosted by the Denver Broncos’ Von Miller, highlighting SpongeBob’s best sports moments and featuring pre-kickoff appearances by CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz and Tony Romo, along with Eagle, Burleson and Green.

Halftime will offer a sneak peek of Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years, which follows 10-year-old SpongeBob SquarePants and his pals as they spend their summer building underwater campfires, catching wild jellyfish and swimming in Lake Yuckymuck at the camp. The series will debut in 2021 on Paramount Plus and on Nickelodeon later in the year.

“This is a first of its kind presentation for the NFL together with Nickelodeon, and we are very excited to create a unique telecast that will maximize the co-viewing appeal for kids and families, while maintaining the integrity of the game and its traditions,” said Sean McManus, chairman, CBS Sports. “Partnering with Nickelodeon to showcase the NFL playoffs is a great opportunity to highlight the power, depth and reach of ViacomCBS, as we continue to unlock the true potential of our merged company with the first of many opportunities between CBS Sports and our ViacomCBS family.”

CBS and Nickelodeon are part of ViacomCBS. 

“Our game plan is to make sure the NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon definitely lives up to its name by infusing the telecast with Nick’s sensibility of surprise and fun at almost every turn,” said Brian Robbins, president of ViacomCBS Kids & Family Entertainment. “We’re incredibly proud to team up with CBS Sports and the NFL to elevate the thrill of this game for kids and families to enjoy together.”

The NFL Wild Card Game on Nickelodeon is produced by CBS Sports in association with Nickelodeon Productions. Sean McManus and Harold Bryant are executive producers of The NFL on CBS.

CBS Sports Network will be the new home for live Bellator MMA mixed martial arts events beginning Oct. 1, the companies announced Friday.

Bellator MMA fights, which have aired on Paramount Network -- formerly Spike TV -- since 2013, will now air on CBS Sports Network, beginning with the Oct. 1 Bellator 247 event and including the Bellator Paris event on Oct. 10.  CBS Sports Network will also telecast the Oct. 15 Bellator 249 fight card, said the company.

Undercard fights from Bellator MMA events will stream on CBSSports.com and Bellator MMA’s YouTube channel.

“We’re excited to have CBS Sports Network serve as the new home of live Bellator MMA events. It’s a great opportunity to showcase some of the best events and biggest names in the sport,” said CBS Sports Executive Vice President of Programming Dan Weinberg in a statement. “Adding Bellator MMA to the CBS Sports portfolio will allow for greater promotion, engagement and exposure across all our platforms and assets including CBS Sports Network, CBSSports.com, CBS Sports HQ as well as our various social accounts.”

As the NFL gets set to kick off its season, CBS said ad sales are “very brisk.”

On a conference call with reporters Tuesday, CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said that NFL ad sales at this point are "pacing at the exact level we paced at last year, and last year was an incredibly successful year for us.”

The NFL generates billions of dollars in ad revenue and ad buyers had been concerned that the season might be delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, making it difficult to reach the huge audiences NFL games deliver.

CBS will have this season’s Super Bowl in February and McManus said that Super Bowl sales have been “active.”

Related: ‘Monday Night Football’ Starts With Doubleheader Sept. 14

“We are in many discussions with a lot of people,” he said, adding that the "A" position spots that lead off each commercial break are sold out for the first half of the Super Bowl. Those ads are valued because they air before people have a chance to change the channel and tend to be remembered by viewers. 

“So if you want to buy one of those, you’re too late. But there are some available in the second half,” McManus said.

Super Bowl ads are being sold for $5.5 million, about the same as last year, with CBS charging an additional $200,000 to $300,000 for the streaming simulcast, sources familiar with the situation said. 

In an interview John Bogusz, executive VP of ad sales for CBS Sports, noted that the upfront market moved so much later this year, and a lot of the NFL money moves along with it.

He said that CBS has been very busy doing NFL deals as the kickoff approached, and a lot of business was finalized in the last week or two.

Sources familiar with the situation said that prices were up in the low-single digits on a cost-per-thousand viewers.

Demand from movie studios was down because of the pandemic, but insurance companies--GEICO, Progressive, State Farm, Allstate--spending was up, as were tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google.

Most of the advertisers will be traditional football advertisers, with Chrysler Dodge returning as pregame sponsor, Verizon as halftime sponsor and State Farm sponsoring the post-game show.

While NFL players might make statements about racial justice as NBA players are currently, McManus said he didn’t expect that to turn off viewers.

“I think people are really thirsting for live sports content, particularly NFL football,” he said. “I don’t think the way that the social justice issues will be handled are going to affect the ratings at all. I think our ratings are going to be terrific,” he said.

During the first week of the season, CBS Sports will cover the National Anthem, when players might take a knee to protest police brutality against Black Americans.

“After that, we’ll adjust potentially,” he said. The CBS broadcast won’t ignore the political situation and the Black Lives Matter Movement. 

“We’re going to address it in our pregame show with interviews and features, but the coverage of the game once we get to our game coverage will obviously focus on presenting the action on the field,” McManus said. “We need to thread the needle just the right way because there are people who are tuning in just to hear about football. So we need to make sure that we don't overdo the emphasis on what's going on in our country, but we're not going to ignore it”

Producing games in largely empty stadiums amid the pandemic will present some challenges. 

“We learned a lot of lessons by doing 11 straight weeks of golf with respect to social distancing and screening,” McManus said.

Some of our games will be produced remotely from New York City, but CBS Sports’ announcers will be on-site for all games. With the stands empty, CBS Sports will be able to deploy some extra cameras.

Jim Nantz noted that it’s hard to rehearse for NFL games without fans. He noted that the league will be providing sounds compiled from years of NFL films designed to fit into any scenario that might come up. There’s crowd noise for when a kick is returned for a touchdown, or there’s a fumble or the home team throws an interception.

“I really admire the guy that’s running that board and be able to quickly on the fly try to change the emotion we’re going to be hearing,” Nantz said.

He added that he and his broadcast partner, former quarterback Tony Romo, will be separated in the booth by a sheet of plexiglass for safety.

“When Tony and I call games, we’re pretty touchy-feely people. There’s a lot of contact going on,” Nantz said. “I don’t know quite what that’s going to be like, banging on the plexiglass, or high-fiving a hand on the other side of the glass, but we’ll get used to it. Hopefully everybody’s gong to get used to it and I think week two is going to sound significantly better than week one as we all make that adjustment.”

In the 75th minute of the National Women’s Soccer League’s June 27 Challenge Cup match, North Carolina Courage forward Debinha scored a header into the Portland Thorns FC goal to the excited roar of the crowd heard live on CBS. But there were no fans at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman, Utah, where the game was played: Producers and the league added crowd noise to provide more ambiance to what was the first U.S. pro game played since the coronavirus sidelined the sports world in March. 

Since then, Major League Soccer and the National Premier Soccer League (U.S.) have joined NASCAR and some other motorsports; pro boxing; mixed martial arts outfit UFC and other sports, including golf, in returning to live action, albeit with restrictions that have forced networks to drastically alter how they produce and televise live sports to anxious fans. Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League are hopeful they can follow their lead and relaunch later this month.

“Every sport, and the scale of that sport, demands a different way of thinking,” Fox Sports senior VP of field & technical operations Michael Davies said. “But it’s all for the same goal: to keep people safe and to keep the virus from spreading or impacting what you’ve already started.” 

RELATED: Bubble Life in Las Vegas

TV sports producers have responded with innovative approaches to producing live telecasts during the pandemic, maintaining a delicate balance between delivering high-quality, entertaining telecasts while keeping production staff safe.  

“At first it was a challenge, but we said, let’s open up our eyes and embrace this and use the technology out there to be more remote in how we produce events,” CBS Sports executive producer and senior VP production Harold Bryant said.  

COVID-19 has altered and continues to alter the playing field of professional sports. Most events are being conducted without crowds to limit potential virus spread, and network production executives have said they must produce games with sometimes less than half of the typical complement of on-site production personnel. 

“We’ve basically been able to reduce our footprint personnel-wise almost in half on a golf event on site,” Bryant said. “If we do a golf event from Ohio, for example, we have [production] people in Stamford [Connecticut], New York, Burbank [California], New Zealand and Houston. What this has done is advanced our use of technology and remote production.”

Production Moves Off-Site

Fox Sports’ Davies said that the network was able to move a fair amount of on-site production for NASCAR coverage, which restarted in May, to its Los Angeles  pro­duction facilities to limit the amount of producers at the track.

“People were controlling machines that were [at the venue], so that limited the amount of people that needed to travel,” he said. “We were already working on that, but certainly COVID has accelerated that.”  

Networks have had to come up with creative ways to use robotic cameras and drones to replace camera people. ESPN is looking to provide unique camera angles and enhanced technology for its MLS and NBA coverage, VP of event and studio production Stephanie Druley said in a July 7 interview posted to ESPN’s press site. 

“We will have the ability to use drones at MLS and for NBA exterior shots,” Druley said. “The NBA production team will have rail cameras at each venue and access to Second Spectrum [machine learning-based video tracking] elements, among other technologies. For safety reasons, we will also utilize an unusual number of robotic cameras for both sports.”

Along with the challenges of placing personnel at the venues, executives said they also have to prepare for a glut of sports events as sports organizations attempt to make up for lost time. 

On July 4, for instance, IndyCar and NASCAR both presented races from the same track, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The historic happening forced NBC to juggle limited production crews across two different races running back-to back, according to NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood. 

NBC produced the first race, the IndyCar GMR Grand Prix, from a production truck in the infield, then switched its signal to a production truck in Charlotte, North Carolina, to produce the NASCAR Xfinity Series Pennzoil 150 at the Brickyard race immediately afterwards. 

“It is complex to bring back the number of cameras we brought to Indianapolis back to Charlotte and then to make them all work,” Flood said. “You have to become more creative. It’s a fascinating process, and it has forced everyone to step back and think differently.”

ESPN has had to juggle multiple UFC and boxing fight cards over the past couple of months while attempting to maintain a virus-free environment for its production staff. The network’s summer boxing series, in particular, has been challenging (see sidebar). More than 40 ESPN production and camera crew staff lived in a virtual bubble within the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, as the network produced more than 50 fights over a five-week period ending July 21, according to ESPN boxing producer Jim Zirolli.

Room for Creativity

With no crowds to contend with, the network was able to add cameras that otherwise would have interfered with the audience’s view of the fight to provide additional angles, Zirolli said. “We’ve been really creative in the placing of cameras with fewer people in the venue,” he said. 

The new paradigm has allowed ESPN to experiment with different approaches to fight cards, including offering co-main event fights as the opening bout, rather than waiting to air matches later in the live telecast. Typically, the more attractive fights are placed last on the card in an effort to maximize  the live audience. 

“Here, we’re not worried about that because we don’t have any live fans,” Zirolli said. “But if I tell viewers that the first fight on the telecast is the second-best fight on the card, viewers may tune in earlier.”

At press time, Zirolli said that no ESPN staffers contracted the virus while in the bubble, although he said that the odds of keeping people virus-free diminish over time. 

“There’s really no way around it,” he said. “No matter what you do, there has to be a willingness to accept some changes. You’re not going to go there and nobody’s going to get it. The question is then, how are you going to deal with it, and what am I going to do when someone gets it?”

As the major professional leagues gear up for their return, the virus is affecting who gets to play. MLS began its World Cup-style “MLS Is Back” tournament on July 8 and, at press time, had already lost two of the 26 teams due to infections among players and coaches. 

The NBA is scheduled to resume its 2019-20 season on July 30 even as several top players, including Victor Oladipo of the Indiana Pacers and Washington Wizards star Bradley Beal, are sitting out due to virus concerns. The league last week reported that overall, since July 1, 19 NBA players have tested positive for the virus, including Houston Rockets point guard and former league MVP Russell Westbrook, who is quarantining outside the bubble but expects to rejoin the team.

MLB and the NHL have also had a number of players test positive for the virus as they move toward resuming play on July 23 and Aug. 1, respectively. Less uncertain is the start of the college football season, after the Ivy League announced it will cancel all fall sports, and the Big Ten and Pac-12 said they would only play teams within their respective conferences. 

Network executives said they’re gearing up to produce game telecasts despite all the uncertainty. “The learnings that we’ve had from other sports have allowed us to change the way we’re doing productions on some bigger shows,” NBC’s Flood said. “As Sunday Night Football looks at its upcoming season, more and more content will be created in the [production] building.” 

Will Virtual Crowds Roar? 

Executives said there are still some questions surrounding the production of MLB, NHL, NBA and NFL games, including whether artificial crowd sounds will be piped in. NWSL and MLS soccer games feature enhanced audio; U.S. telecasts of European soccer matches have also featured crowd noise. 

NBC Sports’s NFL and NHL coverage will most likely rely on the natural sounds coming from the fields and arenas rather than piping in simulated crowd sounds, Flood said. “We’re looking to enhance the audio of the players and what’s going on the field and ice, rather than bringing in artificial noise,” Flood said. “If we find that it sounds hollow or empty we might adjust, but right now we’re big believers in the sounds of this incredible sport.”

Added CBS Sports’s Bryant: “We’re testing enhanced crowd noises in the NWSL and we’ll test it and see if it could work in the fall. If college football and the NFL are playing without audiences, we’ll see if that works.”

The pandemic has posed a multitude of challenges in delivering live sports programming, producers said, but it has also yielded new production strategies that could remain in place if and when the sports arena returns to normal. 

“We learned a lot about how well technology can facilitate creativity in terms of logistics and distributing production,” Fox Sports’s Davies said. “We’re definitely seeing a sea change in how things are being produced.” 

Added Bryant: “The one silver lining in this whole COVID-19 era is that we’re going to find better ways to do production.” 

CBS Sports will air Big East Conference men’s regular-season college basketball games through the 2024-25 season as part of a sub-licencing deal with Fox Sports.

The agreement calls for CBS Sports Network and CBS broadcast network to offer 20 men’s regular season games per year, with at least two appearances for each of the 10 schools, said network officials. CBS broadcast network will broadcast up to four games per season with the remainder airing on CBS Sports Network, said company officials.

“CBS Sports has partnered with the Big East for more than 35 years, and we are thrilled to be able to continue to showcase the conference across our platforms for years to come,” said Dan Weinberg, executive vice president, Programming for CBS Sports in a statement. “The depth of the conference has never been stronger, and we are excited to continue our long-standing relationship with the Big East in delivering high-quality basketball to our viewers.”

CBS Sports has secured rights to Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) as part of a multi-year agreement between the two parties announced Monday.

The deal calls for CBS Sports Network to air 40 live WNBA games in primetime and on weekends, beginning May 25 with Minnesota Lynx-Chicago Sky telecast, according to network officials. 

ESPN, NBA TV and Twitter will continue to carry WNBA games alongside CBS Sports, according to the league. 

“We are truly excited to partner with the WNBA, bringing the country’s premier women’s sports league to CBS Sports Network,” CBS Sports chairman said in a statement. "This partnership is one of the biggest and most impactful women’s sports programming arrangements ever at CBS Sports, offering national exposure of 40 games per year.

"This agreement provides great live content throughout the summer in primetime and on weekends, and aligns two great brands in the WNBA and CBS Sports," he added. "We look forward to working with the WNBA for many years to come.”

Turner Sports will televise regular and postseason games from the upstart Alliance of American Football League as part of a multi-year distribution agreement between the two parties.

TNT and Turner’s Bleacher Report Live streaming service will air live games from the eight-team league -- which launches the week after Sunday’s (Feb. 3) Super Bowl. TNT will air the Feb. 16 Salt Lake Stallions vs Birmingham Iron game, part of its deal to air one regular season and one playoff game each year during the length of the agreement, according to network officials.

B/R Live will air weekly regular season games, beginning Feb. 23 with the Arizona Hotshots vs. Salt Lake Stallions contest. In addition to live game coverage, all Alliance games distributed through B/R Live will be available on demand, with highlight rights extending across B/R platforms.

Turner Sports joins CBS Sports in distributing Alliance games. CBS broadcast network will air the championship game, while CBS Sports Network will carry at least one game per week.

“We’re looking forward to this exciting partnership with The Alliance – including working closely with its leadership team of Charlie Ebersol, Bill Polian, Hines Ward and Troy Polamalu – and share the enthusiasm and forward-thinking vision being applied to this newly-formed league,” said Lenny Daniels, President of Turner Sports in a statement. “This is a true partnership and The Alliance will have our full support in the distribution of its live game coverage and content across the Turner Sports portfolio.”

The Alliance of American Football will play a 10-week regular season schedule, with a four-team playoff format and a championship game to determine the league’s top team. The league’s inaugural eight teams include: Atlanta Legends, Birmingham Iron, Memphis Express, Orlando Apollos, Arizona Hotshots, Salt Lake Stallions, San Antonio Commanders, and San Diego Fleet. 

Dick Enberg, longtime sports broadcaster, has died at 82.

The sports broadcaster was found dead at his home in La Jolla, Calif., after he failed to make a flight to Boston to be with family. Enberg's wife, Barbara, was in Boston and was expecting his arrival.

Enberg’s daughter said the family believes Enberg died of a heart attack but was awaiting the official report.

Enberg got his start in broadcasting with UCLA basketball and went on to call Super Bowls, Olympics, Final Fours, and Major League Baseball and NFL games. He retired from his TV job with the Padres in 2016, according to the AP, after six decades.

Enberg was inducted into the broadcasters' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015 as the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award.

He started at CBS in 2000, doing the NFL, college basketball, tennis and golf.

“All of us at CBS Sports are saddened to hear of the passing of our friend and colleague Dick Enberg,” said Sean McManus, chairman, CBS Sports. “There will never be another Dick Enberg. As the voice of generations of fans, Dick was a masterful storyteller, a consummate professional and a true gentleman. He was one of the true legends of our business. His passion, energy and love for the game will surely be missed. Our deepest sympathies go out to Barbara and his entire family.”

Enberg won 13 Sports Emmy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Emmy. His catchphrases included “Touch ‘em all" and "Oh, my!"

With the finish line in sight, British long distance runner and Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah made one final sprint at the IAAF Diamond League finals in Zurich, Switzerland, last month. It was the last race of his long and distinguished track and field career and, coming up from behind, he won the last title in his storied career to wild applause.

NBC Sports Group televised Farah’s triumph to track and field fans live via its Track and Field Pass service, a $69.99-per-year, direct-to-consumer service that’s part of an emerging category of digital streaming sports subscription offerings that could threaten to sprint past traditional linear cable sports services to super-serve sports fans across the country.

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Traditionally, live sports programming lived in cable bundles that featured national sports networks like ESPN and FS1, as well as regional sports networks and a handful of general entertainment services.

But now, subscription digital sports services can showcase a huge roster — whether it’s NBC Sports Group offering packages with sports ranging from track and field to cycling to rugby; or Turner Sports kicking up a proposed OTT service geared to UEFA Champions League European football; or ESPN planning a direct-to-consumer service featuring 10,000 live Major League Baseball, National Hockey League and Major League Soccer games.

Getting Cord-Cutters in the Game
The new services seek to provide additional revenue to help sports programmers offset the high cost of rights while giving younger cord-cutting fans an opportunity to access content that’s not typically offered on linear sports channels.

“Before, if you were a cord-cutter or cord-never, you effectively said sports aren’t important to you because the only way to access U.S. pro sports content was through the pay TV network ecosystem,” fuboTV chief financial officer Joel Armijo said. “Now, in the [internet protocol] world, we’re moving toward completely personalizing that experience for a sports fans looking for that lean-forward kind of immersive experience.”

The sports industry has already taken several swings at the multiplatform, direct-to-consumer digital subscription model — all of the major pro sports leagues offer out-of-market packages of live games — while national and regional networks have offered marquee sports via TV everywhere platforms to authenticated viewers subscribing to the traditional cable bundle. As a result, audiences are increasingly viewing live sports content on phones, laptops and computers.

At the same time, younger viewers in particular are increasingly cutting the cable cord or choosing not to subscribe to cable at all, decreasing the pool of potential viewers who watch linear sports content. Pay TV providers lost about 976,000 net video subscribers in the second quarter of 2017, continuing a disturbing trend for cable networks, according to Kagan.

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The realities of the changing marketplace have pushed several linear sports channels, which are heavily reliant on distributor license fees and advertising dollars to offset high sports-content fees, to look for opportunities to generate revenue on alternative platforms. Last month alone, three major sports-media players committed to stepping onto the direct-to-consumer field within the next year:

● ESPN, which has recently suffered subscriber losses — its subscriber total was down 3.5% in its recent third-quarter earnings report — will launch a new service in 2018 that will mostly offer content not currently available on the linear channel. Offerings would include MLB and NHL content from BAMTech, which provides the technological backbone for the two leagues’ out-of-market streaming packages, and which is now majority-owned by ESPN parent The Walt Disney Co. While details of the service are vague, Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger said during the earnings report that the launch of the direct-to-consumer service marks “an entirely new growth strategy for the company.”
● CBS Sports will launch a new OTT service later this year. It also launched a Showtime PPV app on Apple TV devices for the Aug. 26 Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor pay-per-view boxing match.
● Turner Sports — which distributes National Basketball Association games on TNT and Major League Baseball games on TBS — will launch a new streaming service based on its recent acquisition of UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League rights in 2018.

Sports media consultant Lee Berke said the recent OTT sports service announcements mark a shift in the traditional cable bundle’s virtual stranglehold on the category as viewers migrate to more multiplatform viewing.

“I don’t think the bundle or traditional cable is going away, but it’s shrinking, and the days of 80% to 90% penetration of cable services in homes are gone,” said Berke. “The key is that [sports networks] need to be in [the digital] space in an aggressive way and take a new look at their programming rights to see how best to divvy them up in an innovative range of approaches that meet the needs of new generations of viewers that may think their televisions are their phone, laptop or tablet.”

NBC’s Niche Play
Still, cable sports networks have to walk a fine line in trying to generate new digital revenue streams with direct-to-consumer services while not syphoning away cable subscribers from its linear cable channel offerings. NBC Sports Group has tried to have the best of both worlds by launching several direct-to-consumer services under its NBC Sports Gold service featuring niche content and international sports.

The company’s Cycling Pass, Pro Motocross Pass, Track and Field Pass, Rugby Pass and Premier League Pass all offer content that isn’t available on broadcaster NBC or cable sports network NBCSN, said Rick Cordella, executive vice president and general manager for Digital Media for NBC Sports Group.

While NBC Sports Group remains a big supporter of the existing cable ecosystem, the advent of new digital technology, combined with viewers’ willingness to watch content on multiple platforms (NBC’s Sunday Night Football drew an average of 600,000 unique digital viewers to NBCSports.com last year), represents a chance to deliver content to underserved groups of fans, Cordella said.

“What I think has happened is, the technology is now available to deliver these products, and the acceptance of that technology allows you create offerings like NBC Gold that weren’t possible years ago,” Cordella said. ”People are willing and open to watch content this way.”

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A huge question looming over this shift is whether enough underserved sports fans would be willing to pay anywhere from $10 to $70 to watch live sports fare on their phones and laptops. Cordella wouldn’t provide specific subscriber numbers for any of the five OTT sports services, but he said the numbers have “exceeded expectations.”

OTT provider fuboTV is one player that’s skeptical that sports alone will draw enough subscribers to change the game in a video-streaming marketplace dominated by entertainment services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video. A mix of quality sports content and entertainment-based fare will attract a broader audience and score more revenue dollars, CFO Armijo argued.

FuboTV’s 70-plus channel Fubo Premier bundle sells for $34.95 and includes 35 channels that feature sports content, including soccer-heavy beIN Sports, fuboTV Network, Eleven Sports and most recently, Pac-12 Network, to go along with FS1, Golf Channel, Olympic Channel, NBCSN, CBS Sports Network and NBA TV. Also part of the bundle are a number of news and entertainment-based channels including Lifetime, Fox News Channel, USA Network, Univision, El Rey Network, HGTV, Hallmark Channel and History.

“We will continue to work to really super-serve sports fans and that’s very core to what we do,” Ben Grad, fuboTV’s North American head of content strategy and acquisition, said. “At the same time, there’s no one-size-fits-all model out here. We’re confident with our approach of being able to very well serve a number of customers in the marketplace with both sports and entertainment programming.”

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Still, NBC’s Cordella said a sports-only OTT service is an easy sell to fans hungry to watch their favorite sport. “One of the good things about sports is the fact that this is a known entity — you’re tapping into a built-in fan base that already exists,” he said. “When you take a particular soccer game and say, ‘It’s this team versus that team,’ you know exactly what you are getting, as opposed to entertainment services where you have to explain what the content is and why it’s different and better than what your cable subscription already has.”

It could be a while before standalone OTT services replace pay TV providers, Berke said, but companies that don’t explore the direct-to-consumer marketplace do so at their own risk.

“I don’t know if it’s the end game, but it is a necessary step,” Berke said. “It doesn’t mean that that’s the only way consumers will be watching sports in the future, but it means that you need to have a substantial presence there if you’re going to keep yourself relevant for new viewing options. You have to be able to reinvent yourself for each new generation.”

Last week’s tipoff of March Madness brought on a mad rush of new apps and services from pay TV providers, ad-tech vendors and programmers that are tailored for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

On the streaming front, NCAA March Madness Live, an app for the tourney developed in partnership by the NCAA, Turner Sports and CBS Sports, is available across what they say is a record 12 platforms.

Those lending support this year include the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, Roku players and Roku TVs, Amazon Fire tablets, iOS and Android mobile devices, Windows handsets, Web browsers, and even the Apple Watch. Additionally, viewers can access all games broadcast on CBS “with no registration required” on desktops as well as smartphones and tablets. Live streams will also be offered on digital platforms from TBS, TNT, truTV and CBS, as well as via participating TV provider websites and apps.

The NCAA March Madness Live app for the Apple TV offers a split-screen feature that lets users stream two live games at the same time.

Dish Network is literally doubling that with last week’s debut of “Sports Bar Mode,” a feature for its new 4K-capable Hopper 3 DVR that divides the TV screen into quadrants, with each displaying a different live TV program. That feature, also called “multiview” and offered on any Hopper 3 that’s connected to a 4K or HD set, decodes four streams, stitches them together and displays them simultaneously. The feature takes advantage of the tuner-rich Hopper 3, which sports 16 of them.

Comcast is also focusing on the big screen with the debut of a basketball “Extras” for its X1 Sports app that syncs up stats with live programming and relies on tech from OneTwoSee, the Philadelphia-based startup that Comcast acquired earlier this month.

The interactive app provides in-game, team-by-team stats such as steals, rebounds and foul counts, as well as a view of the updated tournament bracket. Post-game, the app feeds a recap of the matchup, including by-quarter scores and the “Xfinity Player of the Game.”

For the tourney’s Final Four round, the app will also let users pull up full-team rosters and detailed individual player stats, including shooting percentages by court location.

The tourney also created an opening for media data specialist 4C to take the wraps off Sports Sync, a platform that enables brands and other partners to deliver ads on social networks including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in concert with a specific live sports moment, such as a slam dunk or a game-changing three-point shot.

Several brands have signed on for Sports Sync for March Madness, 4C said, but the company wasn’t at liberty yet to name them. 4C also has built a version of its platform that triggers digital ads around political TV spots, as well as shifts in the weather.

Not all ad inventory is created equal, according to Aaron Goldman, 4C’s chief marketing officer. 4C’s approach is about delivering an ad message “when attentions are heightened,” he said.

— Jeff Baumgartner

‘Dirty Charades’ Behind the Scenes of ‘Skin Wars'

 Body-painting competition Skin Wars is GSN’s top original series, and behind the scenes it often takes hours for the painters to create their masterpieces on their nearly naked human canvases.

Host Rebecca Romijn and sejudge RuPaul Charles lamented during the network’s March 8 upfront presentation that episodes could take as long as 14 hours to tape as they literally and painstakingly watched paint dry.

They played games to pass the time, such as “Dirty Charades.” It’s like the traditional pantomime guessing game, but as Charles succinctly described, “It was just dirty.”

Michael Levitt said it was often di_ cult to begin shooting after several rounds of charades, because the host couldn’t stop laughing at the risqué gamesmanship.

Romijn quipped that the game’s content and gestures probably wouldn’t be suitable for air. “I don’t think you’re going to see our game on GSN anytime soon.”

— R. Thomas Umstead

CBS Sports execs and a raft of talent from NFL broadcasts on Thursday night and Sunday converged at the network's midtown New York headquarters Tuesday (Aug. 25) for the annual NFL Media Day. Along with touting the upcoming second year of its Thursday collaboration with NFL Network, which starts Sept. 17, the network also highlighted Super Bowl 50, with the sales team asserting that the process is outpacing expectations.

While not apples-to-apples, comparisons between Thursday Night Football when it aired only on the NFL Network vs. 2014, when it added the primetime clout of CBS as well are pretty compelling. Average ratings spiked 52% for the season and boosted overall tune-in to the once distribution-challenged NFL Network.

Nevertheless, the reup with CBS covers just the eight games this fall. The single-season renewal reflects a degree of uncertainty about "what we want to do long term," said Brian Rolapp, executive VP of media for the NFL and head of the network. "There are a lot of changes in the media landscape. We've been very up-front with CBS and everyone else about that."

CBS Sports chief Sean McManus said the teaming with the NFL brought nothing but upside for the network. But looking more broadly at pro football, he pointed to the late game on Sunday afternoons.

"That is our bread and butter and has been for the last 14 years," McManus said. Ratings exceed the numbers of games in primetime on Thursday, Sunday and Monday, he noted.

Preparations are well under way for Super Bowl 50 next Feb. 7. A special trailer was shown to the assembled media. Its voiceover touted the fact that it will be the 19th Super Bowl for CBS, more than any other network. "The event no one wants to miss," the voiceover intoned. "The game no one will ever, ever forget."

CBS sales chief Jo Ann Ross and her sports lieutenants John Bogusz and Tony Taranto pronounced themselves "pleased" with inventory status for the big game, with Taranto noting that he began official talks with agencies the day after Super Bowl XLIX. They shied away from offering specific inventory numbers.

Among other minor announcements Tuesday, weekly wrap-up show Inside the NFL said Adam Schein would be coming aboard as a co-host, as part of the ongoing synergy between CBS and Showtime.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

CBS Sports Network, apparently one of the few sports channels that doesn’t object to being placed on a tier, has agreed to a deal with Verizon Communications’ FiOS TV for inclusion in its somewhat controversial Custom TV service.

CBS Sports Network, which doesn’t have the same carriage requirements as larger sports channels like ESPN and Fox Sports 1, which have objected to the service, will be available on Custom TV’s Sports Channel Pack beginning on May 1.

FiOS launched Custom TV on April 17, touting the service as offering consumers more choice in the channels they do and don’t want to watch. For $54.99 per month, customers get access to 35 base channels – including AMC, CNN, HGTV and Food Network – and can select two of seven genre packages including: Kids, Pop Culture, Lifestyle, Entertainment, News & Info, Sports and Sports Plus.

The deal comes the same day that ESPN filed suit in state Supreme Court in New York against Verizon, claiming Custom TV breached its carriage agreement. While no details were released to the public yet, typically channels like ESPN are required to be carried on the most widely distributed package and are generally prohibited from being placed on a tier. Networks like CBS Sports Network, usually don’t have such requirements. For example, in the New York area CBS Sports Network is available on the Sports Entertainment Package for Comcast customers, the Sports & Entertainment Pak for Cablevision customers and the Preferred TV package for Time Warner Cable customers.

The 24-hour sports network televises nearly 600 live events and over 3,000 hours of live programming, including college football and basketball and professional sports.

“While consumer choice is at the heart of our Custom TV product, when customers make their choices we want them to have the best experience and the most robust package possible,” Verizon vice president, content acquisition and strategy Terry Denson said in a statement. “The addition of CBS Sports Network does just that, with a whole suite of programming that will satisfy a sports-lover’s craving for games, features and analysis.”

In addition to being available on Custom TV, CBS Sports Network will continue to be available to subscribers in Verizon’s FiOS Extreme HD package.

“We are pleased to make CBS Sports Network a part of the new FiOS Custom TV lineup,” said CBS president of television networks distribution Ray Hopkins in a statement. “We are confident that our expanding lineup of premier live programming will be a favorite among Verizon’s sports fans and that this new option will help continue grow our distribution.”

Turner Sports and CBS Sports have announced that former pro basketball player Grant Hill and former college basketball coach Bill Raftery will call the NCAA Final Fourand National Championship games on the networks this year. The two analysts will join the team of Jim Nantz and reporter Tracy Wolfson to call games together throughout the 2015 NCAA Tournament.

While Raftery is entering his 33rdyear calling the NCAA Tournament, Hill, who joined the collective NCAA Tournament coverage last year as a studio analyst, makes his debut this year as a tourney game analyst. The two team up with Nantz and Wolfson for the first time to call the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament semifinals on Saturday, March 14, and championship game on Sunday, March 15, on CBS.

Raftery has served as a regular-season and NCAA Tournament game analyst since joining CBS Sports in 1983. He also has been a game analyst for radio coverage of the NCAA Final Four for the last 23 years and has been elected as a 2015 inductee for the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame. Hill, a two-time NCAA basketball champion at Duke University and member of the College Basketball Hall of Fame, joined Turner Sports in 2013 following a 19-year NBA career. He is a game and studio analyst for Turner Sports, as well as host of NBA TV’s weekly NBA Inside Stuff show.

This marks the fifth consecutive year CBS Sports and Turner Sports will provide live coverage of all 67 games from the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship across four national television networks – TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV.  The Final Four on Saturday, April 4, will be televised on TBS, and the National Championship on Monday, April 6, will air on CBS. 

Dish Network’s retransmission-consent battle with CBS ended almost as soon as it began, with the parties reaching a comprehensive retransmission-consent and carriage accord early Saturday morning, mere hours after the networks went dark to select subscribers.

CBS owned-and-operated stations in 18 markets went dark to select Dish customers at 7 p.m. on Friday after months of negotiations. While CBS expressed extreme frustration in what it called Dish’s foot-dragging in reaching a deal, Dish had stressed that talks continued even as the blackout was implemented.

The standoff ended up lasting less than a day. In a joint statement Saturday morning, Dish and CBS said they had not only reached a retransmission-consent deal for the stations, but a carriage accord for CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian Channel, TVGN and Showtime Networks, including Showtime TV Everywhere and video-on-demand rights.

In addition, all pending litigation against the company has been dropped, and Dish has agreed to disable its Auto Hop ad-skipping functionality for CBS owned stations in the C7 window.

“We are very pleased with this deal, which meets all of our economic and strategic objectives,” CBS Television Networks Distribution president Ray Hopkins said in a statement. “We look forward to having Dish as a valued partner for many years to come.”

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We are pleased to continue delivering CBS programming to our customers, while expanding their digital access to Showtime content through Showtime Anytime,” said Warren Schlichting, Dish senior vice president, programming in a statement.

The agreement includes retransmission consent for CBS owned stations on Dish in New York (WCBS and WLNY), Los Angeles (KCBS and KCAL), San Francisco (KPIX and KBCW), Dallas (KTVT and KTXA),  Denver (KCNC), Boston (WBZ and WSBK), Chicago (WBBM), Pittsburgh (KDKA and WPCW),  Atlanta (WUPA), Baltimore (WJZ), Detroit (WWJ and WKBD), Miami (WFOR and WBFS), Minneapolis (WCCO), Philadelphia (KYW and WPSG), Sacramento (KOVR and KMAX), Seattle (KSTW) and Tampa (WTOG).

The agreement also grants Dish rights to Showtime video-on-demand content and authentication rights for Showtime Anytime, and includes a path to over-the-top distribution of Showtime Networks.

Dish chairman Charlie Ergen has said the company is on track to launch an over-the-top service, including network content from channels owned by The Walt Disney Co., Scripps Interactive Networks and A&E Networks, by year-end.

With the deal, the parties avoid any consumer consternation that may have emanated from football fans missing the SEC Championship game between top-ranked Alabama and Missouri on Saturday on CBS, not to mention Black Rock's slate of NFL action on Sunday.

Showtime is betting that it’s Sept. 13 Floyd Mayweather-Marcos Maidana pay-per-view boxing rematch provides a bigger PPV performance punch than its May 3 predecessor.

Saturday’s PPV fight – the fourth of Showtime’s six fight deal with the undefeated and pound-for-pound PPV king – is the first rematch for Mayweather’s during his PPV career. Showtime Sports executive vice president and general manager Stephen Espinoza told Multichannel News that the competitive nature of the first fight -- which Mayweather won by decision in a very action-packed fight – will draw more viewers to Saturday’s rematch.

Espinoza would not reveal PPV buys for Mayweather-Maidana 1, but published reports put the total around 900,000 buys. Mayweather had generated more than 1 million buys in each of his last six fights before his May fight with Maidana.

“We finally found an opponent who really rose to the occasion and provided a real test for Mayweather,” Espinoza said. “There’s a group of fans who may have bypassed the first fight because they assumed Floyd would be as dominant as usual and who are now not going to miss the second one because of the element of risk. That’s not an element that’s often perceived in Mayweather fights because he is so skilled.”

Unlike the first fight where Showtime had to market the relatively unknown Maidana, Espinoza said Showtime is letting the action and competiveness of the first fight lead its marketing push to fight fans. He added the bulk of its marketing focus is focused on reaching casual and non-boxing fans who likely didn’t see the first fight.

The network has “doubled down” on digital content across all platforms, according to Espinoza. Showtime has aggressively posted short form clips on Instagram and Facebook, as well as streamed full episodes of its All Access documentary series the web. Espinoza also said the network is offering behind-the-scenes clips from both Mayweather and Maidana’s training camps in an effort to spur interest in the fight.

“We’re offering more [digital] content that we’ve ever done for any other fight,” Espinoza said.

The network is also leaning on sister broadcast network CBS to help market the fight. CBS has offered cross promotional spots on the NFL On CBS and on network-televised Southeastern Conference college football games, as well as CBS’ primetime and late night shows.

“That level of support is unprecedented in the recent past for boxing PPV’s,” said Espinoza. “The opportunity to get in front of millions of viewers at one time with our promotional content on CBS is a tremendous benefit to the event itself as well as for Floyd personally and the Showtime network.”

Mayweather’s flamboyant personality has also become part of the promotion, with the fighter using social media to market the fight. Espinoza said the fighter is the network’s secret promotional weapon.

“What we found from consumer research is that what people love about Mayweather fights is the spectacle … it’s the same reason why people who don’t watch football watch the Super Bowl and viewers who aren’t necessarily into award shows watch the Grammys,” Espinoza said. “Mayweather events are huge spectacles from the celebrity value to the circus-like [ring] entrances to the entire presentation of the event. For that reason it makes for a great collective viewing experience.”

Espinoza doesn’t believe that the fight will suffer heavily from an unusually busy 2014 PPV boxing schedule that has already produced five events, compared to only one PPV boxing event at this point last year.

“There is a little risk of consumer fatigue on the wallet, but as for the event itself it’s a very, very attractive fight,” He said.