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 Olympic Channel said it has forged a multi-year deal with Snapchat that will, for the first time, extend a content bridge to the popular social media platform. 

The deal, which taps into Snapchat’s 178 million daily active users, provides Snap with Olympic Channel original programming for Shows on Snapchat’s Discover page and assets for creative tools, such as Olympic-themed lenses, filters and stickers.

Snapchat will also produce Our Stories, a series that features archival footage provided by the Olympic Channel in collaboration with Olympic rights-holding broadcasters, during the 2018 Olympic Winter Games from PyeongChang.  

Starting Tuesday (January 30), Snapchat users will have access to the global premiere of Far From Home, a new Olympic Channel original, via Snapchat’s Discover page. The multi-part series features unlikely Olympic hopefuls who face financial, political and cultural hurdles as they attempt to qualify for PyeongChang 2018, Olympic Channel noted.

Following the daily rollout of four episodes produced exclusively for Snapchat in both English and Spanish, the full Far From Home series will debut on the Olympic Channel global digital platform on February 5.

Olympic Channel and Snap will also work together on other projects, including the Buenos Aires 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games.  

“As the Olympic Channel continues to evolve, we are dedicated to creating more personalised experiences for our viewers as we continue to expand our global footprint,” Mark Parkman, GM of the IOC’s global Olympic Channel, said in a statement. We’re excited to begin this new collaboration with Snapchat which will allow us to capitalise on its unique distribution platform and creative tools through bespoke, youth-oriented content that reaches our common target audiences.”

Sling TV, Dish Network’s OTT TV service, has added a set of channels to its various packages.

The virtual MVPD is adding the Olympic Channel, the year-round offering dedicated to the Games, to its Sports Extra add-on package on Sling Blue, for an additional $10 per month on the Sling TV Blue tier. 

Sling TV is also adding Mexicanal, a Spanish-language news, sports and entertainment channel, to its Mexico pack for $10 per month as a standalone or $5 per month as an add-on.

SlingTV’s Caribe pack as adding Domincan View. That package remains at $10 per month as a standalone, or $5 per month as an add-on package.

Dish Network is set to release Q3 results Thursday (November 9). 

NBCUniversal has partnered with the International Olympic Committee and the United States Olympic Committee to launch an "Olympic Channel" TV network in the United States in the second half of 2017.

The network -- to complement the existing, worldwide online Olympic Channel that launched after the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janiero -- will offer Olympic-themed sports content on a 24-hour basis, representatives from the groups said during a press call Thursday morning. The channel is being branded as "Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA."

NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel said the network will launch as part of the NBCUniversal channel portfolio as NBCU obtains new carriage deals or renewals through negotiations with pay-TV providers. He said AT&T, as part of a carriage renewal pact announced in September, has agreed to launch Olympic Channel on top U.S. satellite-TV provider DirecTV and that he's confident that the network will gain broad distribution over time because of interest in the programming.

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The partnership will also bring additional coverage of Olympic sports programs on other NBCU platforms including NBC, NBC Sports Network and NBC Sports Digital outlets, beginning this Saturday (Dec. 17) with the Team USA Winter Champions Series. Live events and original content, including on Team USA from the USOC, will staples on the channel year round, the partners said.

Zenkel said NBC's streaming plans for the linear channel would be on an authenticated basis, tied to pay-TV pacts. The Olympic Channel general manager Mark Parkman said that the network will have access to content across the globe.

“The evolution of the Olympic Channel in the United States is a significant milestone as we expand our distribution options across the globe in conjunction with our broadcast and National Olympic Committee Partners,” Parkman said in a release about the new partnership.

NBC Sports had previously been part of a collaboration on an Olympic sports channel -- Universal Sports Network -- in this country, partnering with InterMedia Partners, which was the majority owner. That effort failed to reach a critical mass of distribution and closed down in 2015. That channel had DirecTV and several other major pay-TV affiliates, including Dish Network and Time Warner Cable (which is now part of Charter Communications), but failed to land a carriage pact with leading cable provider Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal. With more of an ownership stake in this new channel (ownership splits in this partnership were not disclosed) Comcast might have more incentive to provide substantial distribution to this time around. Comcast also has committed $12 billion to own the U.S. rights to Olympic summer and winter games through 2032.

NBCU acquired some key Olympic content rights previously held by Universal Sports Network in 2015 soon after the network closed down. 

The Rio de Janiero Summer Games are all wrapped up, but fans of Olympic sports won’t have to wait until 2018 for their competition fix.

The Olympic Channel, a worldwide OTT service, debuted late Sunday (Aug. 21), right after the conclusion of the telecasts from Rio.

The streaming channel — which may eventually spawn a linear network — seeks to “engage young people, fans and new audiences” in the long gaps between the semi-annual Summer and Winter Olympics.

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Backed by €490 million (about $550 million) from the International Olympic Committee, various national Olympic committees and advertisers, the new mobile-centric channel will tread into turf that was abandoned last year after the three-year-old Universal Sports Network, once intended to become an Olympic channel, shuttered operations. U.S. Olympics TV rightsholder NBCUniversal was a minority owner in USN.

“We will continue to evolve the digital platform and look to expand both digital and linear options of the Olympic Channel across the globe,” Mark Parkman, GM of Olympic Channel Services, told The Wire. Parkman, who won an Emmy for covering the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics for Turner Sports, offered no details or timetable, saying only plans would be developed “in conjunction with our partners,” including international sports federations and broadcast partners in each country.

The IOC’s free, year-round “digital-first” platform will offer original short- and long-form programming, live events, news and athlete stories, plus footage from the IOC archives. It won’t be a “sports channel,” a spokesperson insisted.

The Olympic Channel launch is accompanied by social media collateral on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, which Parkman calls vital to the youth orientation. At launch, it will be available via Android and iOS apps and on the website.

Parkman said the IOC is working with partners to look at “future ‘localized’ offerings of the channel.” Initial funding is for seven years (2015- 2021); Japanese tiremaker Bridgestone is the channel’s first advertiser. At launch, the channel will have more than 2,600 pieces of content, including more than 400 original premium items, 550 pieces from the Olympics archive and 1,200 stories produced in Rio this month.