When The CW named Mike Perman as its new senior vice president of sports last month, the executive came in with a plan.
“Part of the reason I wanted to be here is because I see how [The CW is] growing the business, and I want to be a part of something from the ground up — but it’s taking a chance on sports,” said Perman. “We’ve seen success so far with ratings and the [NASCAR] Xfinity Series, [and] how that translates to our ACC basketball games and entertainment programming.”
Perman has a long history in the sports media landscape. The New York native spent the first few years of his career with Fox Sports in Los Angeles, before heading to the NBA with the league’s international television department. Perman then moved to Comcast, working for what was then Versus before NBC Sports Network, initially managing content scheduling before taking on additional responsibilities.
After 16 years at Comcast NBCUniversal, Perman left in January 2023 and did consulting work before joining Aggregate Sports, a sports sponsorship and media rights advisory group.
“I was doing media rights deals on my own,” said Perman, referencing the Formula E deal with Roku and CBS. “I was feeding [Aggregate] business to do advertising sales, and they were giving me some contacts for media rights distribution. We just decided to be better if we were working together.”
Perman came into his role at The CW already familiar with the company’s properties, especially after managing all of NBC’s motorsports portfolio.
When The CW got into the racing game with NASCAR’S Xfinity Series as part of a seven-year media rights deal, Perman knew that would be a “heavy lift.”
“NASCAR is very different from stick-and-ball sports, just the overall business,” said Perman. “For The CW just trying to get into sports, I figured they could use some help with the Xfinity Series, but also just to transition into sports — of doing deals, managing the properties, how to evaluate what would be good to put on the network, as far as sports content.”
Former CW head Dennis Miller hired Perman for six months to consult, and then in January began talks with current President Brad Schwartz to join full time.
Changing the narrative
The CW is no longer the network of “Gossip Girl,” “Supernatural” and “The Vampire Diaries,” but instead a network that has been increasingly collecting sports rights, including NASCAR, ACC football and basketball, WWE Next and Grand Slam Track arriving soon.
“There is a certain challenge to figuring out what the narrative is, changing people’s views of how what they used to watch on it to what it has become now,” said Perman. “Sports will be a big part of doing that.”
Perman wants to manage the company’s overall relationships and ensure The CW is in a good spot with its existing properties before pursuing further deals.
“I’m charged with really running P/Ls here,” said Perman. “We want to go after ‘X,’ how does it look from an overall perspective of the company? Then looking at other properties that may be out there. Not the core four sports that are tied up for periods of time. As we look out to that and see when those are available, and if we’re interested in that, what’s the type of content, or sports content, we could go after in the meantime to help us grow?”
For Perman, part of that strategy is picking up existing properties that have growth potential, such as the Xfinity Series. Viewership for the first couple of races this season was between 1.1-1.8 million, but Cup Series numbers are more than triple that, according to Perman.
“There’s a bunch of Cup Series fans that aren’t watching Xfinity. How do we figure out how to translate those over to Xfinity Series, NXT, where you’re seeing the wrestlers that want to make it up to [WWE] Raw?” said Perman, also is questioning the visibility of track and field outside of the Olympics.
Perman declined to comment on specific properties up for grabs, but nothing is off the table.
“We’re off to a great start, but I think there’s room for improvement in some areas,” he said. “We’re trying to figure out, digitally, what we’re doing here from a sports perspective, because it’s different than entertainment.”
The CW will have more than 400 hours of sports programming in 2025, and expects to be profitable by 2026. Its other arm in the entertainment side of the business leaves room for cross-promotion of the sports properties, including having talent serve as grand marshals at upcoming NASCAR races.
Part of the approach is education in other areas of The CW and its parent company, Nexstar.
“Sports have propped up areas of the other business, whether it’s ratings for other shows or interest from advertisers,” said Perman.
“In the marketplace, people are a little bit energized or happy to have another player in the space,” added Perman. “It’s always been NBC, ESPN, Warner Brothers, the main players. I know that obviously the streaming services are out there, but it seems like I’m getting a lot of inbound calls.”
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Good Sports
The CW will have more than 400 hours of sports programming in 2025. Here are highlights of its sports rights.
ACC football and men’s and women’s basketball: Active through the 2026-27 season
NASCAR Xfinity Series: 33 races per year, active through the 2031 season
WWE NXT: Five-year deal began in October 2024
Grand Slam Track: One-year deal for 2025
