Nexstar Media Group has been active in pursuing rights to live sports for The CW in recent months, and that is by design.
Even with the rise of cord cutting, there’s still a demand for linear TV, and Nexstar is taking advantage of the opportunity to be a player in the live sports space.
In the company’s third quarter earnings call on Tuesday, Nexstar president and COO Michael Biard said recent deals for rights leagues like the ACC and LIV Golf are important in Nexstar’s efforts to make The CW more attractive to advertisers. It’s working, as evidenced by new deals recently announced.
“That demand for broadcast television has allowed us to enter into exclusive agreements with a number of major sports organizations, including our just-announced deal for WWE NXT in 2024; LIV Golf, which will return in 2024; ACC football and basketball, and NASCAR starting in 2025,” Biard said.
CEO Perry Sook said the agreements to add live sports to local CW affiliates will only help those stations from an advertising revenue perspective.
“We believe these are important assets and value-creating assets for the network,” he said. “I can tell you when we brought LIV Golf on, the local stations hit that hard and had great success this past summer and fall, monetizing that at the local level.”
Nexstar has also been keeping an eye on the ongoing Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy and the willingness by affected teams to look to broadcast TV to fill the gap.
“[The NBA] carved out a 10-game package for broadcast. That was a telling little tidbit inside that deal,” Biard said referencing the deals done with the Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs. “And what we’re seeing is evidence — both at the national level with the deals being done, and at the team level with the local deals being done — that the search for reach that only broadcast can deliver is really ubiquitous and applies at all levels right now.”
