12/21/24
December 24, 2011
NBC Makes Run at ESPN with NBC Sports Channel: On Jan. 2, NBC is mounting a challenge to the ESPN empire with the launch of NBC Sports Channel, a renamed and revamped version of Versus. The NBC networks offer Sunday Night Football, the Olympics, PGA golf and the NHL and recently added Major League Soccer, an NFL divisional playoff game, Thanksgiving night game and three Super Bowls. The company wants to add college football, Major League Baseball, Nascar rating and NFL Thursday night games as rights come up in the next few years.
Does anyone know if the new channel will have its own SportsCenter?
posted by rcade at 12:32 PM on December 24, 2011
Will they please cut back on the yay-hoo "sports" shows fishing, hunting?
posted by jjzucal at 01:04 PM on December 24, 2011
Yes. It'll be called 30 Yard Rock.
posted by beaverboard at 01:06 PM on December 24, 2011
It sure would be nice to have a sports channel that recognizes hockey's existence.
Down here in the Land of Sun and Bibles there are two kinds of hockey--no hockey and shitty hockey.
Even if NBC came up with a sports channel, the local affiliates here would probably do what they usually do whenever good programs -- including hockey -- comes on. Most often preempt it with something else.
posted by roberts at 01:15 PM on December 24, 2011
When has OLN/Versus preempted hockey with anything else? Does your local NBC affiliate not show Saturday hockey in your area? None of the above has ever happened here in North Carolina, the land of sun and bibles.
posted by NoMich at 02:01 PM on December 24, 2011
None of the above has ever happened here in North Carolina, the land of sun and bibles.
That's nice.
posted by roberts at 03:38 PM on December 24, 2011
Wasn't trying to be snarky. I asked in all earnestness.
posted by NoMich at 05:20 PM on December 24, 2011
I think you're quite lucky. I do not get Saturday hockey. And my cable package apparently does not include OLN/Versus.
posted by roberts at 06:08 PM on December 24, 2011
The piece suggests that the Dick Ebersol era is very much over. I think it'll be interesting to see what NBC does with the Olympics this coming summer: Ebersol clung to his model of highly-edited, time-delayed primetime presentations, which has been on borrowed time for the last half-decade, with the emergence of real-time online results and samizdat streaming options for those who want to watch events live. (It was shaky in Beijing, and falling apart for Vancouver, even though the latter was working on a US timezone.) Mark Lazarus comes from cable, which has a very different mentality.
My guess is that the soft-focus primetime packages will survive (given that London is +5 from the east coast) but explicitly as highlights, and that the rebranded Versus, along with NBC's other cable channels, will handle live coverage of events that Ebersol would have embargoed.
posted by etagloh at 07:12 PM on December 24, 2011
If this means I don't have to struggle to find curling in the next winter games, only to find it on late at night and edited, I'm all for it.
posted by feloniousmonk at 09:23 PM on December 24, 2011
They generally had curling live around 5 PM eastern time during the last Winter Olympics. It was probably my most watched sport of those games.
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 10:56 PM on December 24, 2011
At least I'm not the only curling fan. I wish they'd have that curling or cross-country skiing (guess I'm odd there) rather than having from Billy Joe Bob talk about how a Winchester can blow away Bambi at 50 yards.
Much of the live Olympic stuff was on its Universal Sports channel; I presume stuff like basketball, soccer and track, with competition all day, will get live play from 5-6 a.m. (ET)
posted by jjzucal at 12:33 AM on December 25, 2011
It sure would be nice to have a sports channel that recognizes hockey's existence.