The NBC Sports Network Hopes Ratings Will Rise

In past lives, it was called the Outdoor Life Channel, OLN and Versus. But by any name, the NBC Sports Network has been a blip in a universe dominated by ESPN.

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Robert Caplin for The New York Times

Mark Lazarus, chairman of the NBC Sports Group.

Sometimes consigned to the upper reaches of the cable listings, the network usually churns along with a low profile and modest viewership. During the London Olympic Games, however, it was temporarily transformed.

With about 14 hours of Olympic programming each day, primarily of team sports, the number of viewers swelled sixfold, to 977,000 a day, compared with the four weeks before the Games. That was an increase of 26 percent over the same period last year, providing a 17-day tonic to the ratings as special as the one CNN gets on election nights.

The idea was to enable viewers to see NBCSN as a viable sports channel, perhaps for the first time. In past Olympics, NBC Universal farmed out team sports to USA Network.

Among all cable networks, NBCSN leapt to fifth in viewership, and it was No. 1 with viewers 18 to 49 and 25 to 54. The most-watched event was the United States women’s gold medal-winning soccer match, which drew nearly 4.4 million viewers — more than the network has drawn for any event, including the Stanley Cup Final, in its 17-year existence under various owners.

“This has exceeded all our predictions,” Jon Miller, president of the NBC Sports Network, said last week from London. “There’s a great euphoria with the success these Olympics have generated.”

Now what? The Olympics are gone until the Winter Games from Sochi, Russia, in 2014. The network returns to reality, meaning a regular schedule that has experienced reduced prime-time viewership in 2012 compared with last year.

Part of that decrease is because of the overhaul the network began earlier this year, when its parent, the NBC Sports Group, renamed it and added new programming, like a monthly prime-time interview show with Bob Costas; a daily early evening show called NBC Sports Talk; and sports like Major League Soccer. They join existing content like the National Hockey League, motor racing, cycling, college football, boxing, horse racing, and hunting and fishing.

On Monday, the network added a weekday morning show, “The ‘Lights,” that disdains anchor banter for an unseen male voice narrating highlights on a 20-minute loop. The show begins at 7 a.m. Eastern and is repeated five times in succession until 9 a.m. Another show, called “Caught Looking,” was scheduled to start Wednesday night. A collaboration with Major League Baseball Productions, the show will take a behind-the-scenes look at a specific weekend series through the rest of the baseball season.

Last month, it added a monthly magazine series — similar to “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” on HBO and “E:60” on ESPN — in partnership with Sports Illustrated.

But most of the new additions are studio shows and not the live-action sports that NBC Sports Network so desperately needs. There remain enormous gaps in its schedule. There are no Major League Baseball, National Football League or National Basketball Association games. There is no college football from major conferences. There are no Nascar races, only those from the lower-rated IndyCar series.

And there are no defining personalities among the channel’s regular hosts and game announcers.

It is no surprise, then, that it charges cable, satellite and telephone companies an average monthly fee of 31 cents a subscriber compared with ESPN’s $5.13, according to SNL Kagan. Depending on the time of year, NBCSN’s prime-time viewership is about one-tenth to one-quarter of ESPN’s.

“We all know this is a five-year plan to make it a bigger sports network,” Mark Lazarus, chairman of the NBC Sports Group, said on Sunday. “No one here believes, ‘You did the Olympics, now we expect your ratings to go up 20 percent.’ I’m hoping we get more people to sample the network.”

Mr. Lazarus has consistently kept his public expectations low and declines to speak about directly challenging ESPN. He recognizes that Olympic success is not enough to push subscriber fees higher or to justify rewriting existing contracts with cable, satellite and affiliates. NBCSN needs a stronger slate of more prominent sports to attract consistent audiences, especially males, from season to season.

Comcast, which owns NBC Universal, spent $4.38 billion to acquire the four Olympics from 2014 to 2020, but it will have to look seriously at buying some or all of the sports whose rights will soon be up for bids — Major League Baseball, Nascar or the Big East conference, each of which would be carried on NBC’s broadcast and cable networks.

Mr. Lazarus would alter his channel’s economics drastically if he could acquire a slate of eight Thursday night games from the N.F.L. But the league, which carries one Thursday slate on its own NFL Network, has not decided to sell another.

“The idea is that if they can get these blockbuster events, they at least have the leverage to get higher carriage fees,” said Brad Adgate, senior vice president of research at Horizon Media.

Peter Liguori, the former chairman of Fox Entertainment who also ran the FX cable channel, said the Olympics got NBCSN on “people’s mental menus.” Now, he said, in addition to aggressively pursuing more sports rights, the channel “has to give an audience something to talk about and do certain things that ESPN doesn’t, either in production techniques or announcers.”

He said the network needed breakthrough programming to attract viewers, as “The Shield” did for FX and as HBO has done with “Hard Knocks,” which focuses on a single N.F.L. team in training camp.

“If you get one thing to really stand out,” he said, “you break down the barriers of habit.”

Red Sox boss says no players asked for new skipper

BOSTON (AP) -- None of the Boston Red Sox players in a series of meetings with the team's top brass called for manager Bobby Valentine to be replaced, owner John Henry said Wednesday.

Henry issued a statement one day after Yahoo! Sports reported that several players met with him and team president Larry Lucchino in New York on July 27 to complain about Valentine's handling of the team. Chairman Tom Werner was also at the meeting.
Henry said he called the meeting, and it ''quickly went to the point - what do we need to do to turn things around?''
''No one in that meeting at any time took the position that Bobby should be or needed to be replaced,'' Henry wrote.
Henry said players took responsibility for the team's performance; the Red Sox were 57-60, 12 1/2 games out of first place in the AL East, heading into Wednesday night's game in Baltimore against the Orioles.
''They weren't blaming injuries or anyone but themselves,'' Henry wrote. ''At the same time they openly spoke about what could improve in addition to their play. They made substantive points. We addressed those points.''
Valentine also declined to point fingers.
''Personally, I think we're in it together,'' he said. ''I think we're going to get hot.''
Henry said he called a similar meeting ''about this time eight years ago,'' a reference to the 2004 season in which the Red Sox won the World Series for first time in 86 years. This time, the meeting was divided up into three parts, Henry said, ''separating groups so as to have frank discussions about what was wrong.''
Henry also complained in his statement about the details of the meeting going public.
''I understand that when the team isn't playing up to our standards that issues are going to be sensationalized,'' he wrote. ''But what is important for Red Sox fans to know is that ownership, players and all staff especially Bobby Valentine are determined to turn around what has thus far been an unacceptable, failed season. We are all on the same page in that regard and will not waver.''
Valentine also said he regretted that details had gone public, but he said that the controversy hasn't weighed on him.
''If we were 10 games over .500 and in first place, he wouldn't have to make any statements,'' the manager said.
Valentine was hired last offseason to replace Terry Francona, who was let go after the team went 7-20 in September to blow what had seemed like a certain playoff berth. Valentine said he wanted to change the culture of a clubhouse where players ate fried chicken and drank beer during games, rather than sitting in the dugout to support their teammates.
Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz defended the manager.
''He does his job,'' Buchholz said. ''When something goes wrong, somebody has to be blamed for it and it's usually us. ... He's doing a good job. It's a game, man, it doesn't always work.''
Valentine said he planned to be back in 2013.
''And '14 and '15,'' he said. ''That's what I'm hoping.''
---
AP Sports Writer David Ginsburg contributed to this story from Baltimore.

‘NBA 2K13′ will include the Dream Team* and Team USA 2012, allow for debate-settlin’

Well, this is a neat little surprise.
Remember how for a little while there, folks were batting around the question of whether the 2012 edition of Team USA — led by present-day superstars LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul — could have beaten the 1992 version popularly referred to as "The Dream Team," which featured legends Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and is widely considered the greatest team ever assembled in any sport? Well, in case you were under a rock for a couple of weeks (or got on Billy King's scotch plan to "Eternal Sunshine" the memories away), let's catch you up:
The discussion started when a reporter asked Kobe at a pre-London workout how he thought the 2012 squad would fare against the Dream Team. Kobe, unsurprisingly, said he thought his team would "pull it out," citing superior speed, scoring and wing depth. This, naturally, led to a slew of Dream Teamers, including the famously shy Charles Barkley, disputing Bryant's claim. Hoops fans all over the world, including President Barack Obama, shared their opinions on the topic, with most falling on the side of the '92 squad, which smashed its opponents by an average margin of 43.8 points per game en route to gold in Barcelona, compared to the crummy lil' 32-point average posted by 20-Doz during their 8-0 run in London.
[ Y! Sports Minute: Coach fuels Jordan-James debate ]
While chatter on the matter has largely subsided in the wake of another U.S. gold-medal win at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Wednesday has brought us a new fuel-for-the-fire nugget: "NBA 2K13" — the forthcoming annual update to the wildly successful basketball video-game series from 2K Sports, which will feature Blake Griffin, Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose on its cover and is being "executive produced" by Brooklyn Nets minority owner/hip-hop legend Jay-Z — will include both the Dream Team and the 2012 squad, enabling players to get their "Rocky Balboa" on and simulate the result for themselves (or choose their side and influence the outcome on their own, if they want to be non-scientific about it).
2K Sports shared a promotional image of the Dream Team lined up and ready to go on its Twitter account on Wednesday morning, dovetailing nicely with a story from SI.com's Sam Amick in which Jordan (as part of the 2K team announcing USA Basketball's involvement in this year's game) reiterated that he doesn't think "we would've had any problems with [2012], as much as they think they probably would've given us a lot more difficulties." Promotional synergy, y'all!

The sharper cookies among you noticed that asterisk in the subject line and might be wondering what's up. Well, the whole Dream Team isn't represented in "2K13" — Scottie Pippen won't be included on the '92 roster, because he couldn't come to terms with the game's makers, according to multiple reports. (That's especially weird considering he was one of the all-time legends available for selection in the 2012 model of the game; you'd figure there must be some relationship in place there. But apparently, not enough to get this deal done.)
That's a bummer, both because it'd be nice to have the whole gang together and because Pippen was an integral on-court part of the Dream Team — remember, he led the team in assists, trailed only Jordan in steals and gave many European players fits on the defensive end in Barcelona. Luckily, I'm sure that as soon as the game drops on Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012, about 300 enterprising fans will upload step-by-step tutorials on how to create your own Scottie Pippen to YouTube. They're helpful like that.
The absence of Pippen puts "NBA 2K13" at a significant disadvantage in its quest to be a better video game than the Sega Genesis classic "Team USA Basketball." Will the gameplay, graphics and music be superior? Only time will tell:

Deadly Defoe sinks Azzurri

Daniel De Rossi opened the scoring in a contest between two sides that last met just over seven weeks ago in the quarter-finals of Euro 2012, before Phil Jagielka levelled.
Italy prevailed on penalties at the European Championship and started brightly on Wednesday as De Rossi met an Alessandro Diamanti corner with a powerful header after 15 minutes.
England's equaliser came from a similar source, with Frank Lampard swinging over a set-piece for Jagielka to stoop and glance into the bottom corner.
Roy Hodgson took the opportunity to cast an eye over a number of debutants and players of promise, but it was the tried and tested Defoe who fired a 79th-minute winner from the edge of the box.

Atmosphere

Fifty-two days since that shattering quarter-final shoot-out defeat in Kiev, the atmosphere could not have been more different.
A 30,000-capacity stadium in Switzerland that was barely half full for a game few had any appetite for.
Yet, with only Ashley Young surviving from the team that started that last eight defeat, so many had a point to prove.
Three would have gone to the finals but for injury, Michael Carrick made himself unavailable, Tom Cleverley never had a chance to prove his worth and four were in Poland and Ukraine but had only a peripheral role.
Amongst them was Jack Butland.
The Birmingham keeper has had an amazing summer.
League Two with Cheltenham, to third choice England keeper, Olympics and now this.
Indeed, when Hodgson's squad was announced on Friday, the intention had been to send Butland back to Birmingham on Tuesday so he could feature in their Capital One Cup victory over Barnet.

Momentous

Joe Hart's back injury changed those plans and after giving it some thought overnight, Hodgson plumped for Butland ahead of John Ruddy, his other goalkeeper, who was also hoping to make his first appearance.
At 19 years and 158 days, it meant he became England's youngest keeper, beating the record of Billy Moon, who was 19 and 222 days when he played against Wales at Crewe in February 1888.
Not that Butland would have enjoyed the opening stages of his momentous night as Italy quickly gained the initiative.
Cesare Prandelli had named an equally experimental squad but it was one of his Euro 2012 stalwarts, De Rossi, who did the damage, rising to meet Diamanti's corner and power it in.
Things got better for Butland after that, with the teenager producing a couple of decent saves and commanding his penalty area in a manner that suggested in a few years he will be a genuine challenger for Hart.
Indeed, England improved as a whole, with Carrick and Cleverley starting to get to grips with their roles in a three-man midfield, a new innovation for Hodgson since he succeeded Fabio Capello in May.
Adam Johnson also sparkled, although the equaliser arrived from an unlikely source just before the half hour when Jagielka's diving header found the bottom corner.
It was the Everton man's first international goal, which skipper Lampard nearly built on when he curled a free-kick inches over.

Superb

Although he had happier things to occupy his mind this evening, Sir Alex Ferguson would not have been too impressed to see Davide Astori go straight through the back of Ashley Young, which led to a few choice words to the referee from the Manchester United winger.
Butland and Andy Carroll were replaced at the break, which gave Ruddy his chance.
And he could not do much more than get down brilliantly to turn away Mattia Destro's shot on the turn that was heading for the bottom corner.
Antonio Nocerino slid a superb pass through to Federico Peluso, who drove his shot into the side-netting.
Kyle Walker was at fault on both occasions, proving the Tottenham youngster is not quite the finished article even though he was last season's PFA Young Player of the Year.
Gary Cahill has a happy knack of scoring for England and thought he had another when he drove home from a corner, only for the goal to be ruled out for an infringement by Joleon Lescott.
Jake Livermore became England's fourth debutant when he replaced Lampard midway through the second-half, a move which saw Carrick inherit the captaincy, and Ryan Bertrand completed the quintet of rookies.
And, after Ruddy produced another sparkling save to deny Marco Verratti, Defoe's shot exposed some sloppy keeping by Salvatore Sirigu to seal victory to ensure it was a night to remember for them all.

New Big East boss says league is 'united'

NEW YORK (AP) -- New Big East Commissioner Mike Aresco wants to create a conference that gives its members no reason to leave.

Aresco held his first news conference Wednesday since being hired by the Big East. He was joined at the New York Athletic Club by University of Cincinnati President Greg Williams, the head of the league's search committee.
The Big East was gutted during the last round of conference realignment, losing three longtime members (Syracuse, West Virginia and Pittsburgh) and a member-to-be (TCU). It has reconstructed itself as a national football conference that will span four time zones starting next season.
''I think you approach realignment with the idea that you strengthen your conference,'' said Aresco, who is leaving his job as an executive vice president with CBS Sports to take over the Big East in early September. ''You make it a place people want to be. You make it a place where people who have left would rather have been back there. You make sure that there is a consensus among the schools.''
Aresco said he believes the rebuilding league is stable.
''I would not have taken this job if I did not feel that this was a cohesive conference that was committed to each other,'' Aresco said. ''What I want to do is make sure I'm a good communicator. I think it's very, very important to make everyone feel welcome. To understand everyone's concerns. You have a disparate group of schools but they share a common goal. They want to make this work.''
The Big East also has an expansive basketball league that includes eight members that don't participate in the football conference, including Notre Dame.
Balancing the desires of the basketball schools with the football schools has always been tricky for the Big East and now it's bringing in schools such as Boise State and San Diego State for football only with no regional ties to the current members.
''I think we have a football conference that's going to be extremely successful. We already have the most successful basketball conference in the country,'' Aresco said. ''There already is stability and it's my job to guide them to an even brighter future.''
Aresco is a Connecticut native who grew up with the Big East Conference, which started as a northeast basketball league, expanded to football in the early 1990s and is now in the process of its second major makeover.
The Big East is also about to enter into negotiations for a new television contract, one that will likely decide whether the conference does have future.
Football drives the value of a conference and right now Big East football has been downgraded. The Big East has held a lucrative automatic bid to the Bowl Championship Series, but that system is being replaced by a playoff, starting in 2014.
The Big East will no longer draw postseason revenues equivalent to the Big Ten, Southeastern Conference, Big 12, Pac-12 and Atlantic Coast Conference, but it is still hoping to land a television deal worth upward of a billion dollars.
''I'm not daunted,'' Aresco said. ''We have to tell the story. We have to talk about the Big East's strengths. They're there and they're quite significant and substantial.
''I believe this conference has always had the ability to reinvent itself and become stronger. It's had to do that a few times and it's going to do it this time.''
Online: http://bigstory.ap.org/NFL-Pro32 and http://twitter.com/AP-NFL

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