Comcast said the University of Notre Dame has become the first collegiate organization to participate in the Comcast NBCU Sports Tech accelerator program.

As part of the group, experts from Notre Dame’s athletics department will participate in the accelerator, mentoring and working with sports-business startups in which Comcast has made an investment.

“We are excited to join Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech, bringing together and further enhancing our historic collaboration with NBC Sports and the University’s commitment to innovative athletics,” Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua said.

“Being part of this program will continue to help us to identify and implement new technologies and ways of thinking that can elevate the sports experience for our University, our athletes, and our fans,” said Bevaqua, who was previously chairman of NBC Sports.

NBC Sports has had a long relationship with Notre Dame, including exclusively televising Fighting Irish home football games since 1991.

“Notre Dame adds a unique innovation champion to Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech’s distinguished partner roster,” said Will McIntosh, President, Fandango & NBC Sports Next, a subdivision of NBC Sports and home to all NBCUniversal digital applications in sports and technology.

“As the program’s first collegiate adviser, Notre Dame offers new opportunities, access, and insight for startups,” McIntosh said. “Additionally, through our broadcast rights, NBC Sports and Notre Dame have a rich tradition of collaborating on ways of enriching fan experiences, further aligning to one of SportsTech’s core pillars.”

Starting with SportsTech’s fifth class, which will begin in 2025, selected companies will have an opportunity to explore collaborations and engage directly with experts and leaders from Notre Dame and the network of businesses with which it works.

Over the course of six months, Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech connects founders with partners with an eye toward developing strategic collaborations and enhancing companies’ products and services.

Notre Dame joins Comcast’s NBC Sports, Sky Sports and Comcast Spectacor as well as NASCAR, the English Premier League, the PGA Tour and three U.S. Olympic sports organizations, U.S. Ski & Snowboard, USA Swimming and USA Cycling, as part of the Comcast NBCU Sports Tech program.

UPDATED: DirecTV will not be able to show Notre Dame's football season opener Saturday live from Dublin, Ireland vs. Navy in more than 30 markets in which the local NBC affiliate broadcast station is owned by Nexstar Broadcast Group, after all.

This comes as a surprise to Next TV, which was told by the satellite TV company on Thursday that DirecTV customers in those Nexstar/NBC markets (at least those with a 4K TV) would still be able to see the game live via a dedicated national 4K channel arrangement established with Notre Dame and NBC Sports back in 2016.

Turns out, NBC's deal with Nexstar apparently supersedes the agreement with DirecTV, which puts Notre Dame games on 4K/UHD channels 105 or 106, depending on the week.

"The game remains available over the air, streaming on Peacock and potentially on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports App," said a DirecTV rep, who didn't explain what "potentially" means. 

Whatever -- we're done following up with these guys for today. DirecTV announced a new sponsorship deal with Notre Dame Thursday, and we thought tub-thumping that bit of news  was conspicuous, given that the biggest station blackout in pay TV history was going to keep a lot of Notre Dame fans -- and Navy ones -- from seeing this big game full of golden helmets. 

More than 160 Nexstar stations have been blacked out on DirecTV since early July. The blackout extends to earlier impasses between DirecTV and Mission Broadcasting and White Knight Broadcasting, both of which have management services agreements with Nextstar. 

DirecTV has complained to the FCC, claiming this amounts to one monolithic retrans dispute involving more than 200 stations. 

Here's what's still useable from what we wrote Thursday. Next TV, of course, regrets the mess -- we owe it to you to do a bit less trusting and more verifying next time we deal with these fellows:

Earlier this week, DirecTV pressed its complaint with the FCC that Nexstar is using management services agreements with Mission and White Knight to effectively add scale to its retrans negotiating might. The "blackout" extends to more than 200 stations when those two broadcasters are factored in. That makes it the biggest pay TV station blackout ever. 

Nexstar's response to that FCC missive has all the hyperbolic haymakers of a pay TV carriage war in mid-flight. 

“With yesterday’s FCC filing, DirecTV continues its campaign to thwart fair marketplace negotiations and instead use the impasse it created to pursue its broader regulatory agenda," Nexstar said in a statement sent to our sibling publication, Broadcasting + Cable. 

"DirecTV has a history of this behavior. Since 2019 it has dropped more than 150 channels or networks from its systems for various lengths of time," the station group added. "In total, these drops have resulted in more than an entire year’s worth of programming being lost to viewersTrue to form, DirecTV has manufactured this crisis by declining an extension that would have kept all of Nexstar’s stations available throughout this impasse. "

NBC Sports chairman Pete Bevacqua, who was a punter for the Fighting Irish football team, was named athletics director for Notre Dame, effective in 2024.

Bevacqua will join Notre Dame as special assistant to the president of athletics in July and will succeed Jack Swarbrick when he steps down in 2024.

Bevacqua is the third senior executive to leave Comcast-owned NBCU in less than three months. NBCU CEO Jeff Shell was fired because of an inappropriate relationship with a CNBC anchor in April. Ad Sales Chairman Linda Yaccarino left in May to become CEO of Twitter.

In a memo to staff, Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCU Television and Streaming, said Bevacqua was leaving the company to “take his dream job” at Notre Dame.

“Anyone who knows Pete will tell you that other than his family, Notre Dame is his next greatest love, and now he has been given the opportunity to have a huge impact on their stories sports program and the institution in general," Lazarus said.

Bevacqua’s direct reports at NBC Sports will report to Lazarus for the near term, the memo said.

Bevaqua joined NBCU in 2018 as president of the NBC Sports Group and was named chairman in 2020. He graduated from Notre Dame magna cum laude in 1993.

NBC has had a special relationship with the Fighting Irish, making an unprecedented deal to carry Notre Dame home football games starting in 1991. NBC’s current deal with Notre Dame–paying the school a reported $22 million a year, runs through 2025. 

College football has gone through a number of changes with schools forming larger and larger conferences. NBCU last year made a deal to carry some Big Ten college football games and there has been talk of Notre Dame football, which is currently an independent, joining the Big Ten.

"At this time of great chaos and disruption in college athletics, it will be invaluable to have Pete join Jack and me in charting a future for Notre Dame athletics that allows our student-athletes to play at the highest level, enjoy a full student experience and earn a Notre Dame degree,” said Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins. 

“Having come to know Pete over the years in his work at NBC Sports, I’m looking forward to welcoming him, his wife, Tiffany, and their children — Samantha, Arthur and Jake — to our campus community,” Jenkins said.

Before NBCU, Bevacqua was CEO of the PGA of America from 2012 to 2018. He earlier served as global head of golf at Creative Artist Agency, chief business officer for the USGA and managing director of the U.S. Open Championships. He began his career at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.

“This is an unbelievable honor for me and a dream come true. With the exception of my family, nothing means more to me than the University of Notre Dame,” Bevacqua said. “As a Notre Dame alum, I have a keen understanding and deep appreciation of the lifetime, transformational benefit our student-athletes receive in a Notre Dame education, one that is unique and unlike any other institution in the world. I am so grateful to Father Jenkins, the Board of Trustees and, of course, Jack Swarbrick. Jack has become a true friend over the course of the past several years and I am looking forward to working alongside him and learning as much as I can from the person I admire and respect the most in college athletics.”

After announcing last week its plan to give Peacock exclusive TV rights to a pivotal late NFL regular-season clash and a post-season Wild Card matchup, NBC Sports has touted yet another exclusive live-football engagement for its subscription streaming service. 

Peacock will share six Notre Dame football games with the NBC TV Network next fall, while also getting exclusive video rights to the Fighting Irish's Sept. 16 game against Central Michigan. 

The move comes after NBCUniversal put Notre Dame's spring-practice scrimmage finale exclusively on Peacock last month. 

NBCU's current deal calls for it to pay an average of $15 million per season to present all Notre Dame home football games, with the backloaded nature of the contract tallying current seasons at around $22 million. That deal is set to expire at the end of the 2024 college football season, and NBCU and Notre Dame are working on a renewal. 

In the interim, Peacock will share some big Notre Dame home games with Peacock this season, including matchups with College Football Playoff contenders Ohio State and USC. (For the latter, the Fighting Irish will be trying to avenge a 38-24 drubbing at the hands of the Trojans last season, but Next TV isn't biased and didn't even really need to include this superfluous parenthetical.)

As for Peacock, more Saturday college football exclusives could be in the offing, with NBCU still yet to announce its first schedule of Saturday night primetime Big Ten games, part of the huge seven-year rights deal signed between the conference and NBCU and CBS/Paramount.

Here's NBCU's 2023 Notre Dame Football schedule:

Comcast streaming service Peacock will have exclusive coverage of Notre Dame football’s home opener as part of the company’s push to use sports to get more people to sign up and use Peacock.

Notre Dame will be playing Toledo on Sept .11. The rest of Notre Dame’s home games will be streamed on Peacock and broadcast on NBC.

NBC Sports acquired the broadcast rights to Notre Dame football in 1991. This is the first time a game can only be watched via streaming.

“Peacock exemplifies how we’re innovating as a company, and Notre Dame has consistently been a tremendous partner in making progressive choices for sports programming,” said Pete Bevacqua, chairman, NBC Sports. 

Comcast and NBCUniversal have been streaming big chunks of the Olympics to get viewers to use Peacock. Peacock has featured a number of other sports events, including the Stanley Cup Final.

Last week, Comcast announced that Peacock had 54 million sign-ups and 20 million active users, a 50% gain. The streaming service lost $363 million in the second quarter on revenue of $122 million.

“Fighting Irish TV and Peacock shows the evolution of how media is consumed by our fans and television viewers, alike,” said Notre Dame VP James E. Rohr and Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick. “We want to provide a great experience to not only our fans who travel around the world to cheer us on, but also to our supporters who are either cable subscribers or ‘cord-cutters,’ and these two streaming platforms do just that. I see no better example of this than Peacock’s success in delivering fans wall-to-wall content during the Tokyo Olympics.”

This season will mark former Purdue and NFL star quarterback Drew Brees’ debut as a game analyst for Notre Dame games on NBC. Mike Tirico will do play-by-play and Kathryn Tappen will be the reporter on the sidelines.

College football set its New Year’s Day playoff lineup this weekend as more post season bowl games were cancelled due to concerns revolving around the pandemic.

Top-ranked Alabama will face fourth-ranked Notre Dame in the Rose Bowl and second-ranked Clemson will battle third-ranked Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl. The winners will play in the College Football Playoff National Championship on Jan. 11. ESPN will air all three games.

The weekend playoffs announcement comes as several other college bowl games were cancelled, as a number of teams from major conferences have chosen not to play in the postseason due to concerns surrounding the pandemic.

ESPN Events Sunday cancelled the upcoming TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl, one of 16 post season college football bowl games now canceled. Currently, 28 bowl games are scheduled to be played beginning tonight (Dec. 21) with the Myrtle Beach Bowl featuring North Texas against Appalachian State.

“We have made the difficult decision to cancel the TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl,” said Mark Meadows, executive director in a statement. “As the inventory of available teams lessened, our ability to stage the game was compromised. We will direct our focus to next year’s bowl, and look forward to staging the game in the 2021 season.”

 College football will take a step closer to determining its four-team playoff lineup as several major conferences hold their championship games this weekend. 

On Saturday, top Ranked Alabama will face seventh-ranked Florida in the SEC Conference final (CBS), while third-ranked Clemson and second-ranked Notre Dame battle in the ACC championship game (ABC). The Big Ten final will pit fourth-ranked Ohio State against 14th-ranked Northwestern (Fox), while the Big 12 Championship game will feature sixth-ranked Iowa State and 10th-ranked Oklahoma (ABC). A high-profile, non-conference championship matchup features fifth-ranked Texas A&M and Tennessee (ESPN).  

On the pro football front, two NFL games will air on NFL Network Saturday: The Buffalo Bills will look to secure a playoff spot with a win against the Denver Broncos, while Green Bay will look to hold on to the top spot in the NFC when it battles the Carolina Panthers. The Cleveland Browns will look to clinch a playoff spot against the New York Giants on NBC's Sunday Night Football telecast. 

The NBA will wrap-up its pre-season schedule this weekend with eight games on Friday, highlighted by ESPN2’s Brooklyn Nets-Boston Celtics telecast and ESPN’s Los Angeles Lakers-Phoenix Suns game. On Saturday, NBA TV will televise the Atlanta Hawks-Memphis Grizzlies game. The 2020-21 NBA regular season launches Tuesday with a TNT doubleheader featuring the Golden State Warriors at the Nets, and the L.A. Clippers at L.A. Lakers. 

Read more: NBA Releases TV Schedule for First Half of 2020-21 Season

Sports streaming service DAZN this weekend will feature fights featuring two marquee middleweight champions. On Friday the $19.99 per month SVOD service will stream live middleweight champion Genady Golovkin’s fight against mandatory challenger Kamil Szeremeta; on Saturday, DAZN will feature middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez’s bout against super middleweight champion Callum Smith. That fight will also be offered via pay-per-view through In Demand, with viewers purchasing the fight receiving a four-month subscription to DAZN. 

Read more:  DAZN Steps Into the PPV Ring with Canelo Alvarez Fight 

College football takes the field this weekend at full strength as the PAC-12 kicks off its 2020 season, highlighting a busy TV sports weekend.  

The college football schedule is led by NBC’s primetime matchup between top-ranked Clemson and fourth-ranked Notre Dame. The Tigers will be without its star quarterback Trevor Lawrence for a second straight game due to a positive COVID-19 test.

The Pac-12 on Saturday gets back on the field for the first time this season with Arizona State facing off against 20th-ranked USC on Fox. The conference last month approved a seven-game schedule after initially cancelling the season this past summer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The conference however, has already canceled two games this weekend -- Washington-California and Arizona-Utah -- due to pandemic concerns.

Other big college football matchups include fifth-ranked Georgia at eight-ranked Florida on CBS and No.7 Texas A&M at South Carolina on ESPN.

DAZN will jump into the boxing ring Saturday night with a lightweight fight between top contender Devin Haney and former world champion Yuriorkis Gamboa. 

On Sunday NBC will telecast NASCAR’s The Season Finale event, the final race of the 2020 season from Phoenix Raceway. 

The NFL enters its 9th regular season week with a full slate of games leading up to NBC’s Sunday Night Football game featuring veteran quarterbacks Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints against Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In other sports, horse racing’s Breeders’ Cup takes place on Nov. 6 and Nov. 7 on NBCSN. 

Notre Dame college football fans abroad will be able to catch all seven Fighting Irish home games during the 2017 season as part of a new NBC Sports Gold direct-to-consumer service.

The $49.99 Notre Dame Football Season Pass package will be available in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and UK, and will offer Notre Dame football home games live and on demand across multiple platforms, according to company officials.

The package will not be available to US consumers, said NBC Sports.

Also, the games can be purchased a-la-carte for $9.99 per game. Both the Notre Dame Football Season Pass and all seven Notre Dame Football Game Passes are available at NBCSportsGold.com, said the company.

The packages join NBC Sports Group’s domestic direct-to-consumer services Cycling PassPro Motocross Pass, Track and Field Pass, Rugby Pass and Premier League Pass.

“We’re happy to bring Notre Dame Football fans around the world access to their team through this new offering from NBC Sports Gold,” said Portia Archer, Vice President, Direct-to-Consumer Services, NBC Sports Group in a statement. “In addition, with the per-game purchase option, international fans of Notre Dame’s opponents can also watch their team take on the Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium.”

DirecTV will team with NBC to offer its subscribers six live Notre Dame college football games in 4K beginning this Saturday, the company said Thursday.

The 4K games, which will accompany NBC’s high-definition Fighting Irish live game telecasts, marks the first live 4K broadcasts of college football games for the satellite service.

RELATED: AT&T: Live Sports Will Drive 4K (subscription required) 

The first 4K telecast will air this Saturday (Sept. 10) with the Notre Dame-Nevada Wolf Pack game, said DirecTV.

“From the Masters Tournament to the Olympics to Notre Dame football, DirecTV is continuing to deliver the most live sports in 4K,” said Dan York, chief content officer, AT&T in a statement. “It’s appropriate we’re showcasing NBC Sports’ critically acclaimed production of Notre Dame football and the Irish’s iconic gold helmets in 4K, because this will be the gold standard for football telecasts.”

DirecTV’s 2016 Notre Dame College Football Telecasts In 4K

Date GameTime

Sept. 10                      Nevada-Notre Dame                         3:30 pm

Sept. 17                      Michigan State-Notre Dame             7:30 pm

Sept. 24                      Duke-Notre Dame                             3:30 pm

Oct. 15                        Stanford-Notre Dame                       7:30 pm

Oct. 29                        Miami-Notre Dame                           3:30 pm

Nov. 19                       Virginia Tech-Notre Dame                3:30 pm

After following the Notre Dame college football team last season, Showtime this fall will focus its cameras on the Florida State Seminoles as part of its football-themed documentary series, the network announced Tuesday.

The series, A Season With Florida State Football, will premiere Sept, 6 and will follow the Seminoles as they compete for the 2016 College Football National Championship, said network officials.

The network will air weekly 30-miuted episodes chronicling the team – which is ranked third in the nation in consensus pre-season rankings -- throughout its 2016 college football campaign, said network officials.

 “There’s no other network delivering such intimate and unbridled access to world-class teams and athletes during the most crucial times of their respective seasons,” said Stephen Espinoza, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Showtime Sports in a statement.  “It’s our difference maker.  Building off our All Access series coverage of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs, and our successful first season of A Season With Notre Dame Football, Showtime Sports is there when it matters most.” 

Showtime Sports will follow the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame’s 2015 college football season as part of a new documentary series, the network said Tuesday.

The series, A Season With Notre Dame Football, will debut Sept. 8 – three days after the team’s opening week game against Texas – and will feature all-access coverage of each Notre Dame game every Tuesday throughout the season, according to network officials.

Each week the series will follow Notre Dame’s players both in the locker room as well as in the classroom as it chronicle’s the team’s march to a national championship.

“We’re honored and thrilled to be granted access to profile a college football program with a legacy as storied and as fascinating as the Notre Dame Fighting Irish,” said Stephen Espinoza, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Showtime Sports.  “The passion of the players and head coach Brian Kelly will make for a compelling television series that will appeal beyond hardcore college football fans to all viewers who appreciate great storytelling.”

TBS’s Kentucky-Notre Dame NCAA college basketball tournament game telecast Saturday night drew a network record 14.7 million total viewers, the network announced Sunday.

The game, which saw Kentucky keep its undefeated season alive with a narrow win over the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame to reach the tournament’s Final Four round, peaked at 19.7 million viewers between 10:45 p.m. and 11 p.m. (ET), according to Nielsen.  

The game also stands as the most watched college basketball ever on cable television, according to the network.

Coverage of last night’s games – TBS' Kentucky/Notre Dame and Wisconsin/Arizona telecasts – delivered the highest average viewership and rating for the Saturday Regional Finals in 10 years (since 2005), averaging 11.7 million viewers, up 34% from 2014, and a 6.8/13 rating/share, up 33% from last year, according to network officials.    

Overall, the CBS/Turner Sports coverage of the 2015 ‘March Madness’ tournament is delivering its highest average viewership in 22 years, averaging 9 million total viewers through last night’s telecasts, based on Nielsen Fast national audience data.