NBC Sports Group CFO Dave Pietrycha is a numbers guy. But even as a numbers guy, he was at the table offering advice as network brass decided how they should shape the network’s prime-time lineup in South Korea.
Weather had played havoc with the Olympic schedule, and the Feb. 13 lineup was not as strong as NBC was hoping. Rather than taking the Olympics well past midnight ET, as originally scheduled,
NBC opted to end the night at 11:30. Not coincidentally, NBC pulled in one of its higher prime-time TV ratings that night, and its programming after local news also saw higher ratings, Pietrycha said.
“It makes the role a lot more exciting than just reporting numbers at the end of the quarter,” Pietrycha said. “I’ve been doing this with Mark Lazarus [chairman, NBC Broadcasting & Sports] now for over five years, and every year it just feels like I’m able to get more and more involved with things. It’s unique in that my peers around the company and in the industry who are CFOs don’t always necessarily play that kind of role.”
NBC executives lean on Pietrycha to identify media trends. They also lean on him to find complementary businesses that would be a good fit for the company. In 2016, it led to the acquisition of SportsEngine, a company that makes it easier for youth leagues and teams to run their businesses online.
It was the SportsEngine deal that offers, perhaps, the best window into Pietrycha’s role. After exhaustive research into the company and its market, Pietrycha suggested to Lazarus that NBC buy it.
“I feel I had a big role in that and went to bat with Mark,” he said. “The deal was one that just made a lot of sense for us because of our relationships in amateur sports through the Olympics and the national governing bodies. It’s hard to create lasting value in our business without owning things.”
— John Ourand
