Still feeling the glow from the most watched broadcast in television history in Super Bowl 58, CBS Sports is in the midst of a transformation. Its longtime leader Sean McManus retired this year, succeeded by protege David Berson. Its college football coverage this season officially switches from the SEC to the Big Ten. It has changed up its flagship NFL Today team. Now, it is about to be acquired by a new owner.
The competition over CBS, once thought to have been completed, is between private equity firm Skydance Sports and media investor Edgar Bronfman Jr., chairman of the streaming service Fubo. By the time this article is published, there is unlikely to be any clarity as to who will own CBS by 2025. What is known is that both potential owners are champions of sports programming and will likely want to expand the reach of CBS Sports.
Backstory
Paramount Global, CBS Sports’ parent company, has had a difficult time competing in the current media landscape. Netflix and Amazon have bulldozed their way through to over 200 million subscribers each worldwide and cable has become less attractive to consumers due to how much it costs compared to streaming services. In order to better compete and gain scale, CBS merged with Viacom in 2019, reuniting a pair of companies that previously merged in 1999 and had shared ownership by the Redstone family since splitting into two in 2007.
Burdened with dozens of cable channels losing viewers and subscribers by the day, the value of the company deteriorated at an even more rapid speed. Its streaming service Paramount+ — which launched a decade ago as CBS All-Access — has struggled to find a major hit and is the 10th most popular streamer, losing out to free-of-charge options such as Tubi and The Roku Channel. Earlier this year, chairman Shari Redstone decided to cut her losses and sell the company, reaching a temporary agreement with David Ellison’s Skydance Media. The agreement was expected to close by September 2025, but another suitor has emerged and wants to make Paramount Global an empire of his own.
Who is Edgar Bronfman Jr.?
Edgar Bronfman Jr. is the chairman of FuboTV, which recently won a preliminary injunction against Venu Sports, a skinny sports bundle co-owned by ESPN, Fox and TNT Sports. The court battle tentatively prevents Venu Sports from launching in time for football season due to antitrust concerns. Venu Sports did not include CBS Sports, while FuboTV does.
The media investor is the son of a famous businessman with the same name whose family once owned a beverage conglomerate called Seagram. He has previously been in charge of Warner Music Group and Universal’s former parent company before it merged with NBC. His bid to buy Paramount Global is $6 billion and includes other investors such as former AOL CEO Jon Miller, former Turner CEO John Martin, film producer Steven Paul and the cofounder of Patrón. His bid is a little different from Skydance because it would allow Redstone, who was reluctant to sell her family’s heirloom, to remain in the fold. It also provides more monetary value to non-Redstone family shareholders
Bronfman Jr.’s previous attempts running media companies have had varied levels of success, and he has even referred to one of the mergers he helped form — Seagram merging with Vivendi Universal — as a “disaster.” In 2021, he formed a SPAC attempting to “acquire a high-caliber company in the media, entertainment and technology space” but was not able to succeed.
What is Skydance?
Skydance is a media company founded by David Ellison, son of Oracle co-founder and billionaire Larry Ellison. The company has wings in sports, television, animation and movies. It has previously worked with Paramount to produce movies such as “Mission Impossible,” “Top Gun” and “World War Z.” Skydance also has a partnership with the NFL to produce unscripted programming for the league which has led to hits such as “Kelce” and “NFL Draft: The Pick is In,” and even produced Max’s “Hard Knocks” spinoff covering the Giants’ offseason.
The company bid $8 billion but now must wait for a special committee formed by Paramount to decide which offer it prefers. CNBC reports if the special committee goes with Bronfman Jr.’s offer, Skydance will have four business days to match with a deadline for the entire process to be over by Sept. 5th. Skydance is disappointed with Paramount Global for even considering Bronfman Jr.’s and says that it could be a violation of their merger agreement.
What does it mean for CBS Sports?
Jeff Shell, who will be the president of Paramount if it merges with Skydance, says plans are for CBS Sports to be “a buyer … in the sports arena.” John Ourand of Puck reports Shell intends to “be on the hunt for creative deals that haven’t been contemplated yet.” Berson has also been quoted as saying the Skydance crew loves CBS Sports’ portfolio and strategy: “They love our team. So we’ll have to see how everything plays out, but it’s exciting to see the interest they have, the appreciation they have, for sports.”
Skydance, as mentioned before, has a deep relationship with the NFL and is acclaimed for its storytelling ability in the movie and documentary space. CBS Sports could easily step in and become a major distributor of Skydance-produced docs involving the NFL or other sports projects to a wide audience. Skydance could play a role in telling the stories of athletes who play on CBS and help funnel viewers over to their live games. Netflix sports documentaries including “Drive to Survive” are widely believed to have benefited properties like F1, which has seen a ratings bump that is often attributed to the docuseries.
Bronfman Jr. has not spoken directly about CBS Sports, but it can be assumed given the power of NFL programming in today’s media world — and Bronfman Jr.’s own position as executive chairman of the sports-focused vMVPD Fubo — that he would also be interested in bolstering the division as much as possible. There is no indication at this time of whether Bronfman Jr. would operate CBS and Fubo as a unit or if they would operate separately. It also isn’t clear whether the government would let Bronfman Jr. keep interests in both Fubo and CBS.
Under the assumption that Bronfman Jr. would continue his role at Fubo while owning CBS, it would be no surprise to see some sort of collaborative effort. Fubo owns its own fighting promotion, has a marketing partnership with MLB, and is invested in soccer — even carrying a handful of Euro 2024 matches under a sublicensing agreement with Fox this summer. These initiatives could converge with CBS’ own interests. The network could also use the streamer as a leverage point during negotiations with cable providers which are expected to get more and more intense as cord cutting increases.
What are some other things to consider?
The biggest factor CBS’ owners should be worried about is its NFL rights package. Under the current rights agreement, if CBS switches ownership, the NFL has the right to renegotiate its deal with the network. Would the league be happier with a known partner in Skydance or would it be okay dealing with Bronfman Jr.? FuboTV also has a solid working relationship with the NFL and advertises frequently on the NFL Network. Out of the two options, which one provides more long-term financial stability? David Ellison’s bid is backed by his father, who is worth $170 billion. Bronfman Jr.’s bid, on the other hand, is backed by multiple sources. CNBC reports his bid could face critical government investigation if there are too many foreign entities involved with the bid. There is also a question — no matter who wins — about whether either bidder would be able to maintain Paramount Global in the face of competitors like Disney and NBCUniversal that have way more scale and balanced financial sheets.
