Idle notes.

Television coverage of the IRL could be significantly reduced in the near future. The Sports Business Journal reports that current broadcast partner ESPN/ABC and potential suitor FOX are only interested in broadcasting the Indianapolis 500 in future television deals. ESPN holds the rights to IRL races next year, but “has given the IRL the green light to shop them.” Neither ESPN nor FOX are willing to pay the IRL the $10 million in rights fees the league currently gets from ESPN/ABC, with ESPN suggesting a revenue sharing based agreement. SBJ also reports that Versus “has shown the most interest in obtaining a package, which would not include the marquee races.”

All seventeen regular season NFL broadcasts on NBC will be streamed live on NBCSports.com and NFL.com, marking the first time ever “regular-season action will be broadly streamed in real time in the United States.” The online feed will “feature both the TV broadcast along with other live camera angles”, and the NFL and NBC are likely to “strip NBC?s ads out of the broadcast … [and sell] new online ads and [share] the revenue.” Among those unhappy with the arrangement: the other NFL media partners, who wonder “why NBC was the only network to benefit from such live streaming” and NBC’s local affiliates, “who are certain to worry that any live webcast will dilute TV ratings and steer viewers away from local commercial pods, especially if those local ads are stripped out of the online version.”

The NBA schedule may be released later than usual this year. Schedule maker Matt Winick tells The Oklahoman he’s “three or four days behind” schedule, thanks in part to the move of the Sonics to Oklahoma City, in addition to conflicts with other arenas and free agency. Winick usually begins working on the NBA schedule in February, and had to work “with two different schedules the first five months, one for Seattle and one for Oklahoma City.”

The ratings game.

Jon Lewis

Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. You can contact him here or on the social media websites X (Twitter) or Bluesky.

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Comments 1

Morgan Wick says:

18 years ago

The IRL races get better ratings than the Arena League, the WNBA, or MLS regular season or even playoff games. It seems odd that ESPN and Fox would run away from them.

However, I read the article as saying ESPN wants to put only the Indy 500 on ABC (on broadcast), but wouldn’t say no to the other races being on ESPN. It’s a bit confusingly written…