Comcast recently reported its quarterly financial results demonstrating a 90.9% year-over-year increase in free cash flow and proliferation in other key metrics, including adjusted EBITDA, earnings per share and revenue. In addition to NBC Sports securing its most-watched year of programming since 2016, which included the presentation of the Olympic Games Paris 2024, NFL games on Sunday Night Football and Big Ten college football, the company also reached an 11-year deal to resume live game broadcasts of the NBA starting this fall.
On a previous earnings call, Comcast Corporation chairman and chief executive officer Brian Roberts divulged that the NBA rights could “theoretically” hurt profitability in the short term. Yet he also referred to the development as one of the best things to happen for the company and something that can help grow Peacock, which bolstered its fourth-quarter revenue by 28% year-over-year but has yet to reach profitability. While speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, Roberts was asked about the impact the NBA contract would have for company stakeholders.
“We looked at the NBA and said that we had a big hole in Peacock’s schedule, and in order to slow churn and to build something for the long term, we have Sunday Night Football, we have the Olympics, we have obviously all the entertainment content,” Roberts said. “But right after the winter and a bit of the spring, first and second quarter, that’s where the NBA has tonnage, and we are actually getting the most games of any of the three providers.”
The agreement, which is reportedly worth $2.45 billion per annum, will grant the company rights to televise games on broadcast television and the Peacock streaming platform. On top of that, the NBC television network will also broadcast one of the two Conference Finals series for six of the 11 years in the deal, along with select games in the first two rounds of the playoffs and NBA All-Star Weekend. Roberts expressed that Comcast is getting more regular-season NBA games than any other media partner.
NBCUniversal is also going to present at least 50 WNBA regular-season and early postseason games, along with USA Basketball men’s and women’s matchups leading into the next three Summer Olympic Games. The NBA on NBC property is nearing a return for the first time since 2002, and it will feature talent such as Mike Tirico, Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford among others.
“We have a lot of playoff games, but that drives your subs, your ARPU and your churn, and it is, just with the NFL, I think the premier content that we can do in the United States,” Roberts said. “We also get the WNBA – we’re going to have 50 games on Peacock exclusively – we can continue our Sunday night franchise. I think we’ll have a lot of great execution and make it big the way NBC Sports – [it] doesn’t do everything, but when we do it, tends to be like just take football, No. 1 show in television.”
Earlier in the interview, Roberts addressed different aspects of the financial standing of the Comcast Corporation and how it relates to broadband customers. In the fiscal fourth quarter, customers only subscribed to broadband averaged 800 gigabits a month, something that he explained was up double digits. Furthermore, he explained that 70% of all internet consumption is entertainment, and he has witnessed how more content in the genre and sports are moving to streaming.
“What will be the norm for consumption in the next five years, I think, is going to [be that] regional sports are all going to streaming,” Roberts said. “We’re going to go to 8K or whatever the next generation of video quality [is]. All of that is bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth.”
Comcast also announced the formation of SpinCo, an independent publicly traded media company that will consist of various cable networks such as CNBC, MSNBC and Golf Channel. Mark Lazarus, the former chairman of NBCUniversal media group, is the prospective chief executive officer of the venture and announced several corporate leadership appointments earlier in the year. Roberts explained that Mike Cavanagh, president of Comcast Corporation, “came up with a very smart move” as the company recognizes that 98% of Peacock viewership comes from other content beyond the cable networks.
“You put that company together, it’s a terrific media company, and I think we will make all of Comcast NBCUniversal now 65%, as I said at the beginning, of our growth businesses, up from 60%,” Roberts explained. “It accelerates us and gives a whole lot of people new responsibilities. It’s been energizing to the organization. I give Mike a lot of kudos – hope to get that done by the end of the year.
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