The LA 2028 Olympic Games will open with eight Women’s Finals on Day 1 of official competition; USA Sports is revealed as Versant’s sports division; and Unrivaled Basketball adds a fourth night to its schedule. Plus news on the NBA, Drew Brees, Excel Sports Management and Daryl Johnston.
LA 2028 Olympics Day 1 to feature eight Women’s Finals
Organizers for the LA 2028 Olympic Games released the full competition schedule on Wednesday, with the first official day of competition — July 15, 2028 — set to feature eight women’s finals, the most held in one day at the Olympics. That will include the 100-meter championship to determine the world’s fastest woman, a title currently held by Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia.
“We want to come out [for] these Games with a bang, and likely that race will among the most watched of all the races in the Games,” Shana Ferguson, chief of sports and head of games delivery for LA 28, said on a media call. “We just want to start Day 1 with a massive, massive showcase of the fastest females in the world.”
Track and field has generally taken place in the second week of the Summer Olympics, but in 2028 will switch places with first-week staple swimming. SoFi Stadium is both the swimming venue and the site of the opening ceremony, and officials will need time between those events to create a swimming pool in the venue. Preliminary competitions in baseball, basketball, soccer and water polo will begin in the days leading up to the Games’ formal onset.
LA 2028 is introducing a new “Super Saturday” on July 29, 2028 that will feature “26 finals sessions across 23 sports,” including soccer, golf, hockey and rhythmic gymnastics. As usual, the finals of men’s and women’s basketball are scheduled for the final Saturday and Sunday of competition. Final matches in boxing, swimming, cycling track, volleyball and wrestling are also scheduled for the final Sunday ahead of the closing ceremony.
USA Sports revealed as Versant division
Versant announced Wednesday that its sports division will be named “USA Sports,” bringing back a name that was used on the cable network’s sports broadcasts from its 1977 launch until 2007. USA Sports president Matt Hong said in a statement that the brand “leans into USA Network’s decades-long reputation as a top national sports and entertainment network.” The return of the “USA Sports” name was previously publicized in an August memo by Versant CEO Mark Lazarus.
USA Sports will be the name of the full Versant sports portfolio, covering events not just on USA but on Golf Channel and CNBC as well. It will consist of properties such as the Premier League, PGA Tour, NASCAR and WNBA, with women’s sports set to encompass about 1,000 hours of programming next year between WNBA games, League One Volleyball, the LPGA Tour and other college sports.
Outside of networks airing sports content, the company will also include cable channels such as MS NOW, E! and Oxygen. Versant is also going to acquire digital assets such as Fandango, SportsEngine, Rotten Tomatoes and GolfNow.
Versant has yet to unveil a direct-to-consumer streaming solution to distribute its broadcasts, but Hong earlier this year expressed interest in partnering with Peacock and potentially other third-party streamers. Operating outside of the NBCUniversal portfolio will grant the company more autonomy as to how it wishes to allocate its rights.
Unrivaled Basketball adds Sunday games to schedule
Unrivaled, the three-on-three women’s basketball league that debuted in January, is adding a fourth night of games per week in its second season. The league will now include games on Sundays, in addition to the previous Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays. Like the Saturday games, Sunday games will air on truTV and HBO Max, with TNT joining the fold for the Monday and Friday contests. Four teams are going to be scheduled to play on Fridays and Sundays, while the other four will compete on Mondays and Saturdays.
Rick Porter of The Hollywood Reporter reported that Unrivaled and TNT Sports plans to tweak coverage next season to “feature more fans in the primary camera shots.” Porter also wrote that TNT would bring “some more of TNT Sports’ long history televising basketball into the mix,” though it was not clear what that would entail. This fall marks the first time in four decades a Turner broadcast network has not presented NBA live game broadcasts in the United States.
Co-founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, Unrivaled recently expanded to eight teams and is preparing to start as the WNBA and WNBPA attempt to reach a new collective bargaining agreement. Both sides agreed to a 30-day extension that established a new deadline of Sunday, Nov. 30 by which to reach an agreement.
In addition to televising Unrivaled Basketball games, TNT Sports is an equity partner in the league. The sports division of WBD, which is slated to be spun off to Discovery Global next year, also produces regular season and postseason college basketball.
Plus: NBA, Drew Brees, Excel Sports Management, Daryl Johnston
- The NBA has officially announced that its All-Star Game will use a United States vs. World format for the first time this season, holding a round-robin tournament featuring two U.S. teams and one “World” team playing and four 12-minute games. Both the All-Star Game and NBA All-Star Saturday, both of which shifts to NBC and Peacock starting this year, have officially been set for a 5 PM ET start to accommodate NBC Sports’ Olympics coverage.
- Former NFL quarterback Drew Brees will make his debut as a Fox Sports NFL analyst on Sunday from MetLife Stadium as the New York Giants host the Green Bay Packers. As previously announced, Brees will be working the remainder of the season with Adam Amin and reporter Kristina Pink on the broadcast team that previously featured Mark Sanchez.
- Goldman Sachs is becoming the majority stakeholder of Excel Sports Management in a deal that values the latter at approximately $1 billion, according to numerous reports. The sports agency, which represents broadcasters such as Derek Jeter, Jess Sims and Holly Rowe, has been in business for more than two decades and is forming “a new strategic partnership” with the investment banking firm.
- Fox Sports NFL analyst Daryl Johnston will be departing his role as the executive VP of football operations for the United Football League, it was announced Wednesday. The UFL declined to renew Johnston’s contract for 2026, officially ending his two-year tenure with the entity.
