NBC Sports’ Survival Strategy

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0:48Congratulations! You made the varsity, the podcast. My name is Jon Aranda, and I am Puck's sports correspondent and the host of this pod. Now, I spent last weekend in Las Vegas. Yes, I did take in one of the WrestleMania shows at Allegiant Stadium Saturday night. It's always wild for me to see a packed and engaged football stadium for WWE events. But I was really in town for another reason. The National Association of Broadcasters held their annual convention in Las Vegas over the weekend, and I was there to interview John Miller on stage. John is a top executive at NBC Sports. He's the president of acquisitions and partnerships over there, and he's seen it all.

1:33He's been in the broadcast TV business for, get this, 48 years, and he's the one who's at the table negotiating all these rights deals. This was a really good conversation, and we're going to run it in its entirety here today. But before I get to John Miller, today is Wednesday, April 22nd, and here's what I'm watching. I've been preaching for the past several weeks that the sports business, and the NFL in particular, needs to focus on D.C. more. That's because everyone from the FCC to the Department of Justice, as well as senators, congresspeople from both parties, are all poking into the NFL's business.

2:11I brought that up to Puck's legal correspondent, Eric Gardner, in my private email from Monday. And Eric said that the D.C. moves so far look pretty toothless right now. My words, not his. He doesn't expect much to come from them. Instead, Eric said the biggest peril facing the NFL comes from the courts, and most specifically, the Sunday ticket case that initially awarded a$4. billion verdict against the NFL. That amount could really impact the NFL's business model in a material way. Now, as Eric said, we're all waiting for a decision from the Ninth Circuit, which could come down any day or any week.

2:53And once that decision comes, whoever loses will ask for a rehearing. And then whoever loses that is going to petition to get the case to the Supreme Court. So this is a case that's going to get really noisy really quickly. And the main point here is that if you care about the business of the NFL, keep your focus on the courts. This Sunday ticket case could have big ramifications. Okay, now let's get to my conversation with John Miller from the National Association of Broadcasters Convention. John Miller is a president of acquisitions at NBC Sports, has been with NBC for close to 50 years, close to five decades.

3:36And what I like about talking to John is that when he started in the business, there were some cable. Actually, he started before ESPN even launched. That's right. So to say cable was in his infancy, it was almost in utero of sorts. So you saw the rise of cable. You saw the rise of regional sports networks. We've seen cord cutting happen and the rise of streaming. the video that we just showed 51 Sunday nights you're going to have sports on broadcast it feels to me and I know that you're an evangelist about broadcast television it does feel that broadcast is having a moment broadcast TV I think it's definitely having a moment I don't think we really went anywhere a lot of people wrote our obituaries that would be me which happens quite often and I'm kind of used to that But I think broadcast is quite honestly stronger and more important than ever.

4:34And I think our partners realize that. As you mentioned, we will have 51 of 52 Sunday nights. We'll have live sports programming on NBC on broadcast. We go from Sunday Night Football, which is the number one show in television, has been for the past 15 years. And I don't see that stopping anytime soon. Right into the NBA regular season and playoffs. and when the NBA conference finals end in mid-May, we'll pick up with our new Major League Baseball package, which will take us all the way through September, when we'll resume with Sunday Night Football. So we're very excited, and we think it's really important that broadcast television be recognized for how it delivers audiences, for how the quality of production is important to the partners.

5:23and we like the hand that we've been dealt. John, we're here in Las Vegas. We're speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention and if you pick up any trade, you're reading about the streamers, the deep pockets of the streamers, trillion-dollar companies. how is this competition for NBC different than it was say with the rise of cable? I mean do you feel like you've been here before? We have been here before and you know and as I said a lot of people have kind of written us off which I think is always a mistake. I think that the streamers have a different set of priorities and strategic objectives, quite honestly, than we do.

6:12They do have very deep pockets, but they can't offer a lot of what broadcast can offer. And they can't offer the marketing, the promotion. Certainly they can't offer the production expertise that both NBC and CBS and Fox and ABC and Disney can offer to partners. I mean, the investment that NBCUniversal has made over the last several decades, not only in broadcast rights, but in production infrastructure and data analytics and being able to provide 1080 HDR or 4K to our broadcast affiliates. I think all of those things are key factors. And it's the biggest way to reach the largest reach that you can get out there.

6:58I can't begin to tell you how important it is to have 20, 22 million people on a Sunday night, every Sunday night, to watch NFL football. when we had the Summer Olympics in Paris in 2024, we had 30 million people every day watching NBC on broadcast. And those are huge numbers. You can't equate those numbers to streaming. Now, the streamers have obviously deep pockets, but they're not able to do a lot of the things that we do. And I think that gives us a strong competitive advantage. Certainly money is a big part of it. All of these leagues have owners and who are, a lot of them have new ownership groups and have debt service that they have to worry about.

7:42So they're looking for a big paycheck. But at the end of the day, I think what the NBC family brings to a partner, and the same thing with CBS and Fox and ABC, that the leagues realize how important broadcast is to their long-term success. I started by saying you've been in this business close to five decades. How often have you come to this show, this convention? This is my first time at the NAB. You're kidding me. No, I'm very excited. I know that people have come from when I started my career at NBC in Washington back in the late 70s to my career in sales in New York. People were always coming out to the NAB and talking about what a great event it was.

8:23And I got invited this year, so I was not going to say no to the invitation. So I'm excited to be here. Your first job in the business, WRC TV in Washington, D.C., what was your job? I was the maven. I was the first maven ever hired by NBC. A maven was someone, if you think of the PAGE program, this was the equivalent of the PAGE program for the NBC-owned stations group. So I learned all the different aspects of running a local television station. And my heart is really in local. So I worked in sales service, I worked in traffic, I worked in operations, I worked in the newsroom at night. I helped write, believe it or not, I would write obituaries sometimes for prominent people so they could have them ready to go if somebody famous passed away.

9:07I worked in business affairs, then I worked in research and eventually got a list and sold local television for three years. And from that I moved up to sell spot sales in New York for the NBC-owned station group. And then I moved over to Network Sports in 1984 and sold Network Sports for four years before I eventually took on a role running programming and development and acquisitions at NBC Sports. And I've been doing some form of that since the late 80s. All right. So one more question on the late 70s, because I love this. Your first job, WRC TV, the NBC affiliate, Washington, D.C., what was your starting salary?

9:47My starting salary was$15 ,000. Not bad. Better than newspapers at the time. I was very excited just to get a job. And, you know, the fact that I was working for a company like NBC. At the time, NBC was owned by RCA. You know, since I've been with NBC, we've had three different parents. We started off, it was owned by RCA, which at the time was this conglomerate that had Hertz Rent-A-Car and Banquet Foods and Random House Publishing and RCA Electronics. We were a very disconnected group. And then they sold NBC to General Electric in the mid-'80s, and GE was our parent until Comcast acquired us in January of 2011, and they've been our parent ever since.

10:31And they are clearly the leaders in the clubhouse in my mind because they understand broadcasting. They're more than a, people thought of them as a cable company. They're really more of a media company and a tech company, and they've been very supportive of all the things we've done and all the investments that we've made. So I want to get to the power of broadcast television and sort of where you are with NBC right now because one of the dichotomies that I find with NBC is that there's an NFL game, one NFL game per year exclusive to Peacock. There was an NFL playoff game that was exclusive to Peacock that made such a furor that I got hauled in front of Congress, John.

11:17They asked me to testify before a committee. NBA deal, correct me on this. I think it's Monday nights exclusive on Peacock. Monday nights are exclusive on Peacock. Sunday nights and Tuesday nights are on NBC, so two nights of primetime for the NBA regular season, which is unique. So for a company that prioritizes broadcast, How do you square what you're doing with Peacock right there? Peacock is a great complementary service to NBC. Everything that's on NBC airs on Peacock. Everything that airs on Peacock also airs on NBCSN, which is a linear now extension of Peacock programming. Peacock is in 44, we have 44, 45 million subscribers that we've reported for Peacock.

12:05and then the NBCSN equation, which includes YouTube TV and Xfinity, is probably another 20 million. So that puts that distribution for Peacock up around 65 million homes, which is significant because that's equivalent to the numbers that you see from ESPN or Fox or Turner. But Peacock is meant to be a complementary service. It's never meant to displace anything on broadcast. But it's enabled us to go and make investments in properties that we wouldn't have been able to make otherwise. We would not have been able to acquire the NBA if we didn't have Peacock as a platform. We would not be able to acquire the exclusive rights to the Premier League if we didn't have Peacock as an outlet.

12:45We use Peacock. Can I interrupt you for a quick second? Why is that? Well, first of all, with the Premier League, there are 380 games. I can't accommodate all of those on NBC. And they play at different times of the day on Saturdays, Sundays, and sometimes they have a midweek fixture. So having the ability to put it on Peacock enables us to go out and acquire this blue chip programming. We still have 30 to 32 Premier League games on NBC. We had a great game on this morning. Manchester City played Arsenal. The season's coming down to the wire. So it was a great opportunity to showcase that property.

13:19But we've also used Peacock to help us acquire the Big Ten. We created a program called Big Ten Saturday Night. So from September from basically Labor Day all the way through Thanksgiving, we'll have a Big Ten football game on Saturday night. But in order for us to be able to afford to get that Big Ten package, we also went out and acquired some games for Peacock. So it's very important for us to have that, but we can't ever let – we don't put the cart before the horse when it comes to that. Broadcast is always the most important part of our equation. and Bob if you want to throw that slide up about our commitment to live sports I brought this graphic here to show just where NBC is in our calendar so you can see all the properties that are listed up here these are all for the most part broadcast properties and we have long-term deals with these properties you can see we've got you know the NBA the WNBA and the Olympics all the way out till 2036.

14:23We have an NFL deal that goes out through 2033. We have a very strong golf portfolio, our college football assets, etc. We've just recently done a Major League Baseball deal, which is a short-term deal. But we have a big commitment to big event sports, and we produce them and market them and promote them in a way that we think is important to those partners, and they recognize that. I have noticed that when you talk about your commitments, you're talking about big event sports. You've said big event sports. It's part of the slide there. I know what big events are, obviously, but what do you mean by that in terms of a strategy?

15:02I'm talking about properties that really aggregate large audiences. So NFL, Sunday Night Football, 20 to 22 million viewers. Big Ten Saturday night, you know, we can get anywhere from 5 to 7 million viewers. Same thing with Notre Dame football. The NBA has delivered, you know, our ratings are dramatically up for the NBA from where they were when they were on cable. We ran a baseball game last week because the NBA wasn't playing on Sunday night, so we brought a game out there. We did huge numbers with that. And so that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, you know, big aggregated numbers that advertisers and sponsors are looking for, which really help fund these acquisitions.

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16:27The Sports Betting Alliance is focused on bringing clarity to this conversation, because whether consumers are in a regulated system or outside it has real consequences. Learn more at sportsbettingalliance.org. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life. Because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves.

17:07Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts. I actually want to go back to the very beginning of our conversation here. 51 of 52 Sundays in the year is going to be sports. What's with that one? Why not 52? I get this question all the time. We don't put on sports programming on the nights of the AFC and NFC championship games because we don't have those games. So either CBS or Fox will have the AFC or NFC championship game on that Sunday night. That game goes till 10 o 'clock. We're not going to program sports against that. So that's the one night of the year that we won't have sports programming on NBC right now.

17:54But what's interesting, Johnny, you bring up a good point, 51 and 52 nights. So we've always had this 20 to 22 week NFL schedule that went from September through the playoffs in January. But the NBA games that we're putting on Sunday nights now from January through May and the Major League Baseball package that we're putting on from mid-May all the way through Labor Day, all of those games that we've put on NBC, those games used to be on cable. So for the past 24 years, all those NBA games that we've now moved to NBC were not on broadcast. And all those Sunday night baseball games were part of the ESPN Sunday night baseball package.

18:34So all of those games have now come to broadcast television and are available to all of our affiliates and to viewers, you know, free of charge. Let me ask you one more quick question also about NBCSN. This is a sports channel that NBC launched within the past couple of months. I am a relatively new and very happy YouTube TV subscriber. and so I get NBCSN. I can't imagine ever subscribing to Peacock because I get it through. Well, Peacock has other things other than just sports. They do? Oh, yeah. They've got entertainment programming. They've got movies. They've got great library programming.

19:14Actually, my daughter always talks about Love Island. When I gave up the Peacock subscription, she was the one that was pissed at me. You can watch Traders. I mean, it's got some really good entertainment content. But from the sports perspective, The genesis of this, Peacock was a subscription service. We had 40, 44 million folks. And the folks at YouTube reached out and said, we see that you have a lot of premium sports product on Peacock that we would like to be able to offer. So they stood up a sports network on YouTube. And then Xfinity followed shortly thereafter. And between YouTube's 11 million homes, and I think Xfinity's probably in 10 million homes, that's another 20-21 million homes on top of the 44 million Peacock subscribers.

20:01So that gives us a real strong base. And I fully expect DirecTV and Charter and some of the other multi-video program distributors to come along as well because they want to be able to offer that. All right. Now that I have you all loose, we've been talking for about 15 minutes. I got to talk about the NFL now. I've been spilling gallons of ink this year talking about the NFL media rights deal. The NFL is in negotiations with CBS about renewing its deal. CBS has a change of control provision that allowed the NFL to open that up. and there's been rumors that I've been perpetuating that the networks are eager to get something done and the NFL is eager to get something done.

20:55Where does NBC stand on the NFL right now? Well, the NFL is obviously a hugely important part of our ecosystem and we've been very proud of our relationship with them and obviously the success speaks for itself. at the right time when the NFL decides that they want to have a conversation with us, our leadership will sit down with them. I think our record speaks for itself. We put a very strong product out there that they recognize. It's not coincidence that Sunday Night Football has been the number one show on television. But I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know when the NFL is going to come to us.

21:33Yes, they are reportedly in conversations with CBS, which was, you know, instigated by the change of control with their new ownership. So we kind of sit back and watch that. But, you know, somewhere down the road, I'm sure that our leadership will have conversations and we'll see how it plays out. Part of what I've been writing about this whole deal is there's a lot of tension among, I was going to say smaller, everything smaller than the NFL, right? but from other rights partners that are trying to now get to go earlier because they're worried that the NFL is going to take too much out of the market.

22:15I know you haven't even started negotiations, you said. I don't want to ask you about the NFL. I just, the actual market itself, are you seeing leagues and properties trying to move earlier? Well, I think a lot of people probably wanted to get ahead of this, but I think we've got to wait and see. I mean, I don't have a crystal ball. I think that we'll, we make decisions, you know, based on what a property will deliver, and we've got a very strong portfolio. In fact, if you want to put up the other slide, Bob, I call this slide the placemat. So like when you were a little kid, you had a placemat with all kinds of other stuff.

22:55But it's, these are all the properties that make up NBC Sports. So several of these properties rights will be coming up in the next, you know, 12 to 18 months, whether it's the PGA Tour, whether it's the Open Championship, certainly the Premier League is going to be coming to market. And then there are other properties that we don't have that will be coming to market as well. And we'll engage with all of them at the right time. But I don't really have any idea of how the NFL negotiations will have an effect one way or another on any of those conversations. When you go into these meetings with other properties, and this speaks for the Premier League right now and for baseball, what are you looking for in the baseball deal?

23:42It has to be certainly more than just TV viewership or rating. Well, I will tell you, we first met with baseball a couple of years ago when it was clear that their relationship with ESPN was probably going to change. And ESPN had an option to get out of their deal. Baseball also had an option. They had a mutual out that was exercised. And so we quite honestly saw an opportunity to create this 52-week sport, 51 out of 52-week sports strategy. I'm a big baseball fan. I was at NBC in 1990 when we lost Major League Baseball after it had been at NBC since 1945. And it was very, very difficult to lose baseball because I think baseball is a very sticky sport.

24:31I think it develops huge loyalty among its fan base. It's a very strong local product. We have the ability to help build stars and build excitement. I think the leadership at Major League Baseball is really impressive. Rob Manfred and his team have done a spectacular job in the pace of the game. You've got some great young stars out there. And I really thought that Major League Baseball should be on NBC. We have a strong production capability, and so that was important to us. And we were able to go to Major League Baseball and convince them, quite honestly, because there's only three years left on the ESPN deal, that while they could have gotten more revenue if they had gone to a streamer and they were clearly offered significantly more money than we offered, but we felt that if you could sacrifice revenue in exchange for reach, that we could do a lot to really showcase and elevate your brand and your property.

25:29The Fox folks do a great job with Major League Baseball. They have the World Series and have done a good job with that. But I felt that we could deliver on a week-in, week-out basis on Sunday nights a lot of the same elements that we do for Sunday Night Football. We put the same stellar production team led by Sam Flood and his team at the head of it. We've acquired terrific talent. And I think that we're showing baseball just how much we care about the sport and how much we can do for the sport. So we'll have regular season, and then we have all of the wild card package. And we'll have that for three years.

26:04And then at the end of that three years, we'll see what the future holds. You know, you talk about big events all the time, but you know what I most like about your career is not the big events and not the big deals that you do. It's the Tahoe Pro-Am that you got. You were the first one. Paul Rabel's been a former guest on my podcast. You're the first one to buy into the PLL, the Premier Lacrosse League. And you've, at the other end of the NFL's specter, have done a really good job. Tell us the Tahoe story. How did that get formed? So what John's referring to is we do a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe every summer.

26:46It's called the American Century Championship. And it kind of came about because we lost Major League Baseball in 1990. And when we did that, the management of NBC at that time, the folks from GE, made some executive changes and brought in Dick Eversol to run NBC Sports. Dick came in and moved some of the old guard out and brought me into his office and basically I thought he was gonna fire me I had been in sports for about a year year and a half and we had lost baseball To CBS and he said look I can't fire everybody. I'm not gonna fire you But you have one year to replace 33 weeks of programming and oh by the way you have no money to spend Which you know when you're a young programming executive is not necessarily what you want to hear But, you know, we took a lot of pitches and we created some new stuff.

27:39And one of the things that was brought to me was this idea of creating a golf tournament in the summer featuring a lot of celebrities. And we were fortunate enough to get players like Dan Marino and John Elway and then a young basketball player from the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan, turned out to be a golf junkie and he came out to play. And all of a sudden we created this really unique event in the summer of 1990 that we thought was going to be one and done. We lost money on it and so needless to say Dick wasn't too happy about that And so basically he basically said okay you've had your fun.

28:12Let's find something else So we said okay, and then over the course of the next eight to ten months We found some small sponsorship money, so we got to break even by the second year So he let us do it a second year and then the third year we got a title sponsor and now 37 years later. It's a juggernaut and we have We have everybody from Steph Curry to Justin Timberlake to Charles Barkley to Aaron Rodgers to this year Drake May is coming and Steph Curry. We've got a great event out there. Our first year we had 2 ,500 people show up to the event. We were thrilled that we got 2 ,500 people to come to this event.