SBJ Media: Football in focus as upfronts begin

We finally know the NFL schedule release is coming Thursday. It took a while to get a firm date because a lot of late changes needed to be made, and we got a lot of clarity Monday. Here’s how the final touches were put on the schedule.

Five games were out in the market, and we found out late last week that Netflix would be adding three of those games: Australia in Week 1, Thanksgiving Eve and a Saturday Week 18 game (those would be in addition to the last year of Christmas Netflix games). Sources tell me YouTube was the leader right up until the end but wanted all five games, and when Netflix was factored into splitting that package, YouTube bowed out. Like with its carriage dispute with Disney in the fall, YouTube held its ground on what it wanted, but in this case, it looks like the home of “NFL Sunday Ticket” will be without a game of its own this season.

So, NFL media chief Hans Schroeder went to work, talking to the other league media partners about two available games. On Monday, we found out they went to NBC and Fox. Sources also told me that Fox’s additional game announced Monday came from its regional window inventory — similar to how CBS was able to add a Week 15 prime-time game.

NEW YORK — Coming off a year in which NBC had the Super Bowl and Winter Olympics, it was natural for sports to be somewhat less prominent at the company’s upfront presentation Monday. However, Mark Marshall, NBC chair of global advertising and partnerships, still talked about the power of sports alongside the network’s other marquee live events, like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and emphasized how NBC has started to own Sunday nights during the entire year with its lineup of NFL, NBA and MLB games.

“Football Night in America” was where NBC specifically highlighted sports during the event at Radio City Music Hall, as Mike Tirico and Bob Costas welcomed the show’s newest analyst in former Steelers coach Mike Tomlin.

The deal to bring NBC another NFL game came too late to be part of the upfront announcements, as the league had to shift plans late last week on where those extra games would go after a deal with YouTube fell through, sources told Sports Business Journal.

Telemundo and Peacock also have Spanish rights for the FIFA World Cup this summer. Famed announcer Andrés Cantor was brought in to hype up that event for NBCU.

New sports > prior entertainment shows in 18-49

While entertainment shows were the focus of ad buyers, brands and affiliates at NBC’s upfront, it’s important to remember that sports draws the bigger live audiences.

“SNF” has been the No. 1 show in prime time for 15 straight seasons, because, well, it’s the NFL. But numbers for the recent run of 10 prime-time NBA Playoff games on NBC (April 19-May 5) show that NBC averaged 4.75 million viewers and 1.57 million viewers among the advertiser-friendly adults 18-49 demo. NBC was up 145% among all viewers compared to the same period a year earlier, and the 18-49 demo saw a 6x increase. Those games also delivered NBC wins among all networks in prime time among adults 18-49, 18-34 and 25-54.

And it wasn’t just the playoffs beating last year’s NBC entertainment Sunday night programming. The NBA regular season and other sports did so, too:

• “Sunday Night Basketball” averaged 823,000 viewers among adults 18-49, up 31% from the same windows last year.
• “Coast 2 Coast Tuesdays” for the NBA averaged 766,000 among adults 18-49, up 87%.
• NBC’s lone “Sunday Night Baseball” game this season averaged 520,000 in the 18-49 demo, up 77%. NBC’s MLB opener averaged 749,000 in the demo, up 126%.

Disney’s upfront is a big event, but with ESPN/ABC this season returning to the Super Bowl rotation for the first time since 2006, football is likely going to have an outsized role at the Javits Center in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon.

“From a platform perspective, from a capability perspective — especially when you think about the creative capabilities of the Walt Disney Co. from cross-platform storytelling — there’s going to be some great surprises along the way as well in terms of storytelling and a lot of surprise and delight for fans all culminating in the most comprehensive Super Bowl coverage in history,” said Danielle Brown, Disney Advertising’s SVP/sports streaming and brand solutions.

Brown noted ESPN/ABC will have 40% of football impressions across NFL and college football this coming season, and that presents unique opportunities for brands (not to mention non-sports tentpoles like the Oscars and Grammys). “We do have brands that come to us and say, ‘How do I break through across both?’ And that is something that we’re in constant conversations about,” she said.

Tech and AI brands are two examples of brands that have raised their hands early to be part of the slate of big events. “They definitely want to break through as it relates to either debuting creative or debuting a product in the game or amplifying their current messaging,” Brown said. “You’ll have some surprises in terms of brands that are coming forth and want to be a part of Disney, the ESPN year at the Super Bowl.”

Not just live sports

Beyond football, one area seeing a lot of interest is ESPN Original Entertainment.

“I can’t even tell you the number of RFPs that we get in regard to wanting to be a part of that storytelling,” Brown said. “From an audience perspective, some of our most consumed content on Disney+ is actually our ESPN original content. We’re bringing in fans that might not have gone to the ESPN app initially. They’re on the periphery, but they want to see and hear the storytelling that ESPN brings. And then once we bring them into that ecosystem, they are going to the ESPN app and to ESPN highlights and things like that.

“So, it’s a great way to draw the more casual fan. It really is something that brands want to be a part of, and they want to build it with us.”

TNT Sports was lauded for its first year with the French Open, so much so that even an ESPN mainstay like Chris Evert gave high praise to the debut.

One of the key ingredients at Roland Garros last year was Chris Eubanks, the former ATP player. Repped by WME, Eubanks also calls majors for ESPN and the regular season for Tennis Channel, and he will head back to Paris with a new two-year deal with TNT.

Eubanks credited a successful 2025 debut to the production team at TNT. “They created what was a safe space, but we also kind of followed their lead,” Eubanks said. “When they want us to kind of be super all over the place, when they want us to tone it down — we kind of listen. So, most of that credit goes to the people behind the scenes.”

Balancing casual and avid viewers

A major tournament can often bring in more of a casual tennis fan. How does Eubanks balance delivering information at majors for that casual fan versus an avid tennis aficionado hanging on every word?

“I look at the time in which I have. If I’ve got a short bit of time — 15 seconds to give a quick little thought — I’m going to condense it and I’m going to simplify it. I’m going to make it very digestible for anybody who’s just turning on the TV hopefully to be able to understand,” he said. “If you say we’ve got a two- or three-minute block where we can really get into the weeds, I’m going to get into the weeds, but I’m also going to try to do a good job of explaining ‘What does this mean? The warmer temperature — how does that affect the ball on the court surface?’ And we break it down and we have a conversation.”

Podcasts a game changer for tennis

Eubanks is a frequent guest on tennis podcasts, such as Andy Roddick’s “Served,” and calls the growth of these pods “huge” for the sport.

“It’s been something that’s long overdue in tennis, and I think now that we’re seeing these tennis pods grow, we’re making the stories of the tour a bit more digestible within the podcast space, because just as much as the podcasts are important, the clips on socials are just as important,” Eubanks said. “There are tons of people who maybe don’t actually go to watch the full podcast, but they love the clips. ... [It’s] content throughout the year that’s outside of the majors that allows the tennis fans to still feel connected to what’s going on or have an update of what’s going on.”

Keep an eye on ESPN play-by-play announcer Dave Pasch, as sources tell me his ESPN deal is coming up in a couple of months. As Andrew Marchand reported, Pasch is in talks to get the No. 2 NFL booth, which could land him on a number of NFL Network games this season. But Pasch’s value goes far beyond the NFL. He also calls games in college football, college basketball (men’s and women’s) and the NBA for ESPN, where he’s been since 2003.

I broke some news last week on Cosm and Fox teaming up for the FIFA World Cup this summer, and this is the perfect example of taking advantage of the event outside of the stadiums. It’s cheaper than a game ticket, and you’ll have passionate fans inside. “We did it around the Copa [America] final with Messi. We saw the power of it,” Michael Bucklin, Fox Sports’ SVP/digital, said of Cosm. “They understand our business inside and out and what we’re trying to do to make big events bigger.”

• The latest SBJ Sports Media Podcast features a chat with with T’Wolves/Lynx CEO Matt Caldwell on local distribution matters, NBA national media and his new wardrobe after moving from South Florida to the Twin Cities.
• The NCAA will be receiving an additional $50 million each season in media rights as part of men’s and women’s basketball tournament expansion from 68 to 76 teams. That expansion means TNT Sports and CBS Sports, which sell sponsorships for both events, will also see the opening of additional categories to grow their own revenue from the event.
• CBS will head into its UEFA Champions League final at the end of the month on a heater, as the four semifinal matches delivered an average of 1.23 million viewers. That’s the best UCL semis yet for English-language TV. It was punctuated by 1.34 million viewers for the second leg of Paris Saint-Germain’s win over Bayern Munich on Wednesday, which marks the best semifinal game ever.
• TBS/truTV, which carries one non-exclusive MLB game a week, is off to its best start to the season since 2015 (when games were on Sundays), averaging 528,000 viewers. This is also the best yet for TBS since it started airing the games on Tuesdays. Women are also tuning in for TBS MLB games at a higher clip, as the demo is up 89% to date.
• TNT Sports’ second year with Roland Garros will bring back many of the key voices that made the event such a success in 2025, plus a few additions to the commentator lineup, such as former player Genie Bouchard joining as an on-site contributor.
• The fifth season of the NHL’s media-rights pact with ESPN and TNT Sports delivered the most-watched opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs ever, with an average of 1.2 million viewers. Meanwhile, the NBA saw the best audience for the first round of the playoffs in 33 years, as the addition of an extra broadcast TV partner continued to pay dividends for viewership numbers.
• While in Toronto for the Tempo’s first-ever game Friday, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said WNBA fans are facing similar challenges with streaming costs and discoverability as other leagues are, writes SBJ’s Richard Deitsch.
• Victory+ will stream the Dream’s local games for free this season, a follow-up to its recent WNBA deal with the Lynx, SBJ’s Tom Friend notes.
• UFC turned to Joe Hand Promotions to sell its Championship Rounds bundle (featuring 13 annual numbered UFC events, 30 second-tier UFC Fight Nights and all cards from Zuffa Boxing, UFC Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and more) to bars and restaurants across the country, writes SBJ’s Adam Stern.