Less than a year after packing up its NBCSN, NBC Sports is apparently calling it quits with yet another sports channel, with plans to shut down The Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA, on September 30.   

News of the shutdown was first reported by The Sports Business Journal, which said Friday that the network has begun informing cable and satellite TV distributors of its plans.  

“In order to best reach our target audiences, we are re-evaluating our programming distribution strategy regarding the content that currently airs on Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA with our partners at the IOC and USOPC,” an NBC spokesperson said in an email message. “We will be announcing our exciting new plans for Olympic content in the fall.”

The channel launched in July 2017 in 35 million homes with the U.S. Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee as minority partners. It first aired live Olympic matches (tennis and wrestling)  during the 2021 Tokyo Summer Games. The channel is currently in about 47 million households and lately, it has offered mostly old Olympic contests and shows from other channels. 

NBC has long been the exclusive U.S. home of the Olympic Games and in 2014 secured rights for the games through 2032.  

As cord-cutting has decimated traditional TV over the years, NBC has rethought its position regarding sports networks. It shut down NBCSN on December 31, 2021,  shifting that programming to its linear USA Network and Peacock streaming service. 

While NBC hasn't officially said where the Olympic Channel's programming will end up, it is believed it could find a home on Peacock and its other linear channels. ▪️

The NBA playoffs continue to deliver big ratings dividends for TNT and ESPN as both networks tied for first place on the weekly primetime charts, said Nielsen.

TNT and ESPN averaged 2.2 million viewers for the week of June 21 to June 27 on the strength of both network’s coverage of NBA Conference finals playoff games. Fox News finished third with 2.1 million viewers, followed by MSNBC and HGTV, said Nielsen.

Read also: Live Sports Programming Sizzling on the Summer Ratings Front 

NBC Sports Network’s NHL post-season game telecasts propelled the sports network to sixth place with 907,000 viewers, followed by TBS (898,000 viewers), Discovery Channel (885,000), USA Network (881,000) and CNN (857,000).

Fox News topped the total day ratings chart for the 19th straight week with 1.2 million viewers, followed by ESPN (823,000), MSNBC (799,000), CNN (654,000) and HGTV (628,000), said Nielsen. 

College and pro football games as well as mixed martial arts action are on the menu for sports fans as the industry heads into the Thanksgiving week.

The NFL’s 11th week on Sunday will feature an NBC Sunday Night Football matchup between AFC West rivals Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders. Other national game telecasts from CBS (New England at Houston) and Fox (Green Bay at Indianapolis) are also on the docket.

The college football schedule is highlighted by Saturday afternoon contests between third-ranked Ohio State and ninth-ranked Indiana on Fox and fourth-ranked Clemson and Florida State on ABC. Primetime games feature 14th-ranked Oklahoma State and 18th-ranked Oklahoma on ABC, and 20th-ranked USC and Utah on ESPN.

The UFC will step into the octagon Saturday night for its UFC 255 pay-per-view event, which will feature as its main event the Alex Perez-Deiveson Figueiredo featherweight championship. The card will also feature women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko defending her title against Jennifer Maia.

NBC will offer Premier League soccer coverage on Saturday, while NBCSN will air league games on Saturday and Sunday. FS1 and ESPN will feature Major League Soccer coverage on Sunday. Meanwhile, Golf Channel will provide coverage of the PGA’s RSM Classic on Saturday and Sunday.

Fox News held off sports-infused TNT in topping the primetime cable ratings charts last week, according to Nielsen.

Fox News averaged 3.3 million viewers in primetime during the week of Sept. 7 to Sept. 13 to top all cable networks, said Nielsen. TNT rode its NBA playoffs coverage to a second place tie with MSNBC, with both networks averaging 2.1 million viewers. ESPN finished fourth with 1.9 million viewers, followed by HGTV and CNN, which tied with 1.3 million viewers.

TLC (1.1 million viewers), Hallmark Channel (978,000), TBS (880,000), and NBC Sports Network (826,000) rounded out the top 10 most watched networks for the week in primetime.

Fox News continued its dominance on the total day ratings front, capturing top honors in the category for the 36th consecutive week. MSNBC, CNN, ESPN and TNT followed behind Fox News on the chart, said Nielsen. 

 Fox News finished first among all cable networks for the first week in September as cable news and sports dominate the cable ratings charts.

Fox News averaged 3.5 million viewers in primetime during the week of Aug. 31-Sept. 6 to lead all cable networks, with MSNBC finishing second with 2.1 million watchers, according to Nielsen.

TNT (1.7 million viewers) and ESPN (1.5 million) -- bolstered by its coverage of the NBA playoffs -- finished in third and fourth place respectively. TLC, HGTV and CNN tied for fifth with 1.2 million viewers.

NHL playoffs-fueled NBC Sports Network (1.1 million viewers), TBS (926,000) and Hallmark Channel (924,000) rounded out the top 10 most watched networks for the week. 

Fox News Channel extended its weekly total day winning streak to 35 weeks, besting MSNBC, CNN, HGTV and ESPN, said Nielsen.

After a six-week absence, Fox News returned to the top spot of the weekly cable primetime ratings charts, according to Nielsen.

Fox News averaged 2.2 million viewers for the week of May 28-June 3 to top all cable networks, including last week’s winner ESPN, according to Nielsen.

TNT, who along with ESPN finished as the most watched cable networks in primetime for the last six weeks – mostly due to their respective NBA Playoffs coverage – came in second last week with 2.1 million viewers. HGTV was third with 1.5 million, followed by MSNBC with 1.4 million and USA Network with 1.2 million.

A&E Network, TBS and NBC Sports Network (all tied with 1.1 million viewers), Investigation Discovery (1 million) and Hallmark Channel (931,000) rounded out the top 10 most watched networks for the week.

Fox News topped the charts on a 24-hour basis for the 21 consecutive week, followed by Nickelodeon, TNT, HGTV and MSNBC, according to Nielsen.

U.S. fans of England's Premier League have gotten increasingly spoiled by TV providers here. According to this recap by Worldsoccertalk.com, coverage was limited the first few seasons, then gained steam under Fox in the late 1990s, was supplemented for several years by ESPN (which excelled after initially buying a limited slate of games that had been on Setanta Sports USA) and then moved two-plus seasons ago to NBC Sports Network. The league has decided to stick with NBC Sports properties, under a six-year extension announced today. The price tag went up from NBC Sports Group's initial three-year deal, group chairman Mark Lazarus said. The current deal, now in its final season, had NBC paying $83 million per year, according to reports. 

The work these programmers have put into promoting the league have helped elevate the games' value as a TV commodity -- at a time when soccer's U.S. TV fortunes are on the rise with the improvements of the USA men's and women's teams in recent FIFA World Cups. One would expect that the bidding this time around for U.S. rights to the wealthy English league were spirited. TV-sports sources indicated there were two other rivals up against NBC this time around. ESPN, interestingly, did not bid. A bit of a surprise, given their executives' interest in the product, their openly expressed disappointment at losing FIFA World Cup rights to Fox (English language) and NBC (Spanish) and their network's recent not-so-hot streak that helped spark a big selloff of media stocks last week. ESPN would not comment but a source said the league would not entertain bids placed jointly by more than one media organization, and ESPN did not have the inventory to commit to showing every game due to its extensive college-football commitments. Fox did bid, according to sources, as did BeIN Sports, the Al Jazeera Media outlet that shows games here from top leagues in Spain and Italy among other soccer properties.

NBC has been a proper steward of the league, both in terms of marketing zeal (the pictured billboard from Times Square promoting the league's arrival being one example) and on-air commitment. Every league match is shown, either on TV by use of virtual overflow channels by some providers or via online streaming. NBC also imported the popular "Match of the Day" recap format from the United Kingdom and picked up the offbeat witty commentary of Roger Bennett and Michael Davies -- the Men In Blazers -- a program that originated on ESPN. NBC's Lazarus told reporters on a call that "our marketing and promotion and that we have emphasized all 20 teams, and that we are not just taking the top three or four" helped impress the Premier League overseers. "We are showing that this is a league of 20 teams and that they all have a chance to get going and that adds value to the league," he said, according to a transcript. 

Lazarus said the Premier League helps establish NBCSN as "a destination for live sports," also including the National Hockey League and motor sports (including Formula 1, another weekend morning staple that NBC acquired away from Fox). He said it's growing and has a "very young audience profile, a very affluent audience profile."

I'm a Premier League fan, if you haven't already guessed. I've enjoyed each step of the league's TV progression here. I watched my first pro soccer game at the CTAM Summit in Seattle 12 years ago -- Fox invited some attendees to see Manchester United play an exhibition against Celtic (of Glasgow). I celebrated when ESPN showed its first Sunday match. And I watch Saturdays and Sundays on NBCSN, with the iPad monitoring alternate games. As a fan of the league, I think NBC's performance merited a return, and look for more and better things with this six-year extension. 

That was Lazarus's message, too. "Having this now for seven more seasons, gives us the ability to continue to invest," he said. "In a three‑year cycle, the minute you sign, you sort of feel like you’re running for office again. We are in office for a little while now, so we can continue to invest."

Photo credit: NBC Sports Group.

Veteran ESPN sports commentator Stephen A. Smith says he’s not concerned about the rise of new cable sports networks looking to compete with cable sports network leader ESPN.

“When I look at Fox (Sports 1), Comcast (which owns NBCSN) and all of these different networks, I love it,” Smith said during a recent video interview with Multichannel News.

Smith added: “I love the fact that there are people who want to come and try to knock us off our pedestal … I like those challenges.”

As far as his future, Smith says he wouldn’t mind taking a stab at political reporting or hosting a political show, but his goal now is to continue to build his voice in sports media.

“I want to establish myself as the pre-eminent voice in the world of sports,” he said. “I’m just getting started.”  

Click here to see the video interview, or here to see the first half of the Smith interview.