Despite only having the rights to one of the four major sports, CBS is comfortably in second place among the Big Four broadcast networks when it comes to sports programming.
The network owns the rights to the AFC and the most recent Super Bowl (which drew 93 million viewers), March Madness (the Final Four drew an 8.6 rating in 2006, .1 ratings points higher than the NBA Finals), The Masters (which drew an 8.4 rating in 2006), SEC football, and tennis’ U.S. Open.
With this relative hodgepodge of programming, CBS has built a reliable, consistent line-up of diverse sports.
CBS has by far the most consistent sports division of any of the broadcast networks. While FOX and ABC have changed graphics and announcers repeatedly over the past several years (2007 will mark the fifth straight year that ABC has had a new graphics package for sporting events), CBS made its first graphics change in nearly half a decade last fall, and has had the same personalities for sporting events for the balance of the decade.
CBS personalities work across several sports, giving network events the kind of uniformity that can’t be found on FOX, ABC or NBC (which use different broadcasters for virtually every event). Jim Nantz handles college basketball and NFL play-by-play, as well as coverage of The Masters. Greg Gumbel works in the studio for college basketball and in the booth for the NFL. James Brown works in the studio for the NFL and in the booth for college basketball. And Dick Enberg handles play-by-play for college basketball, the NFL and tennis. Nearly all events on CBS will feature the voices of Nantz, Gumbel, Brown or Enberg. The only other multi-sport personalities on broadcast television would be Joe Buck on FOX and Bob Costas on NBC — but after those two personalities, FOX and NBC respectively have no other consistently recognizable faces.
Another mark of CBS’ consistency is the fact that the line-up has remained the same for several years. As mentioned before, CBS owns the rights to the AFC, March Madness, The Masters and the U.S. Open — four events that the network has televised for several decades. CBS has televised the NFL since the 1960s (the lone break coming from 1994 to 1998), March Madness since 1982 and The Masters since 1956. No other network can boast airing the same three marquee events for twenty-five years.
That consistency gives CBS an advantage over its competitors, and has helped cultivate an association with those events. When people think March Madness, they think CBS. The same can be said of The Masters and of the U.S. Open. And while the ratings performance does not compare to that of FOX Sports, CBS has a virtually insurmountable lead when it comes to experience.
