Mary Kuow / CBS Sports
CBS Sports
The network, combined with a kids-focused alt-cast on Nickelodeon, delivered the most-watched show in the history of U.S. television with the Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl. That came on the heels of CBS seeing the best AFC Championship audience ever and its most-watched NFL regular season since returning as an NFL media partner in 1998. It implemented a long-planned, seamless leadership succession from Sean McManus to David Berson. CBS signed a new deal with the NWSL, and a commitment to soccer helped lead to the most-viewed season of the UEFA Champions League on U.S. airwaves (English language).
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ESPN
The company signed a key rights extension with the NCAA for most of its championship events and invested in women’s sports on the college side with broader exposure for softball, volleyball, gymnastics and basketball. ESPN signed a key carriage extension with Charter Communications, grew the subscriber count for ESPN+ to more than 26 million and announced plans to be part of a new digital skinny bundle starting in the fall. ESPN created alt-telecasts to attract younger demos in the NHL Big City Greens Classic and Toy Story Funday Football around a London NFL game. Viewership wins included a record women’s college hoops audience for the LSU-Iowa championship.
Fox Sports
Fox Sports
Fox renewed its NASCAR media deal for seven years and merged its USFL spring football league with the XFL for a 2024 relaunch. It delivered several women’s college hoops games that were among the five best this past season: Caitlin Clark and Iowa helped deliver big numbers in February against Nebraska (third-best of regular season on any network for 2023-24) and Maryland (fourth-best). There also was a record number of Women’s World Cup games shown by Fox Sports. The NFL performed well for Fox during the regular season and playoffs (Fox’s 30th season with the league), while its “Big Noon Saturday” window on Saturdays in the fall was college football’s No. 1 game window. That included Ohio State-Michigan delivering the best college football regular-season game audience since 2011.
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NBC Sports
The network successfully brought the first NFL playoff game to a streaming-first platform, and the audience for that AFC wild-card game on Peacock topped what the comparable game drew on linear TV the year before (and marked the most-streamed event in U.S. history). Its NFL package was the best among all league media partners and marked the best season of “Sunday Night Football” since 2015. Rights extensions for NBC included Notre Dame football, NASCAR and golf’s celebrity American Century Championship. The network began its first season as a Big Ten partner, which included landing NBC’s best women’s college hoops audience ever with Caitlin Clark and Iowa taking on Ohio State.
Prime Video
The Amazon-owned platform saw big audience upticks for its second season as the lone rights holder for “Thursday Night Football.” Prime Video even placed two of those games into the 100 most-watched programs for 2023. Prime Video also aired the first Black Friday NFL game on its platform (and got brands Lego, Nintendo, Beats by Dre, TCL and Dyson to integrate exclusive deals throughout the day). Popular documentary content included series with Jason Kelce (its best doc audience), Barry Sanders and Deion Sanders. Prime Video also added to its rights portfolio, bringing aboard the NWSL, Premier Boxing Champions and NASCAR Cup Series.
YouTube TV
The digital skinny bundle took over rights to the long-standing NFL Sunday Ticket out-of-market game package and brought innovation and ease to fans. Roger Goodell said YouTube TV doubled the number of Sunday Ticket subscribers in its first year after the package left DirecTV (that likely means at least 2 million subscribers, substantially more than some Wall Street estimates). Numbers from the fall showed that about 41% of Sunday Ticket subscribers who purchased the package as an add-on to their YouTube TV subscription are new subscribers. To promote the package, YouTube made Sunday Ticket the first brand to debut an ad campaign specifically for the LED exterior of the MSG-owned Sphere in Las Vegas.
