NBC’s Upfront made sports an afterthought; Fox made it the main event

Credit: Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images / Nick King/Lansing State Journal/USA TODAY

With Fox and NBCUniversal, it was the tale of two Upfronts on Monday, at least as it came to sports. The annual carnival of media companies pitching their content to ad buyers has long been a major event on the Madison Avenue calendar, and increasingly on the sports one too (NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is expected at Disney’s upfront later today). As sports consume a larger share of the audience, leaving scripted entertainment increasingly less important, these 90-minute to two-hour pitch shows have embraced sports.

Last year, NBCUniversal broke the news at its Upfront that Michael Jordan would contribute to NBC’s return to the NBA (that hasn’t gone as advertised.) And the company heavily hyped its February schedule of the Winter Olympics, the Super Bowl, and the NBA All-Star Game.

So why did sports get such a small spotlight yesterday at NBCU’s Upfront at Radio City Music Hall?  It wasn’t until 90 minutes in that sports personalities came onto stage: Mike Tirico, Bob Costas, and new NFL commentator, former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin. There were allusions to sports in the first 90 minutes, like the initiative to control Sunday nights through NFL, NBA, and MLB broadcasts, but it was nothing compared to last year’s full-on blitz.

Andres Cantor came on stage to hype Univision’s Spanish-language World Cup coverage with his trademark “gooooool” shout. But much of the Upfront was focused on reality TV shows–a heavy emphasis on Bravo–and new scripted shows. In a release after the event ended, NBCU highlighted 24 of their personalities who appeared, and none were from sports.

Compare that to Fox, which had Tom Brady practically emceeing the show, as well as Rob Gronkowski, Jameis Winston, Michael Strahan, David Jeter, David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez, and Erin Andrews all appearing on stage. Fox used the opportunity to reveal its Thanksgiving Day matchup: the Philadelphia Eagles versus Dallas Cowboys. Meanwhile NBC had news on three NFL games, but didn’t mention any of them during its presentation. It broke the first game, the opening Sunday night NFL matchup between the Cowboys and New York Giants, on the Today show. It sent out a press release after the Upfront to announce it had acquired two additional national window games from the NFL.

In some ways, the disparity is completely understandable. NBCU is a much larger company with a long-standing streaming platform, Peacock, that offers much more than sports. Fox has an entertainment division, of course, and some of its personalities, like Gordon Ramsey, made their annual pilgrimage to try to dazzle the hordes of ad buyers. The cast of the remake of Baywatch were on hand. But Fox is also hyper-focused on sports and news; that is the offering of its relatively new streamer, Fox One.

“We don’t try to do everything, and we don’t pursue scale just for scale sake,” Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch told the audience. “Instead, we focus where it matters most; live sports, live news, bold entertainment and ad-supported streaming.”

The latter is a reference to Tubi, Fox’s growing FAST platform, which has become a not-so-minor part of the Upfront. Gronkowski and Winston were on stage to pump their Tubi show that will air during the World Cup and see the duo, and guests, talk about the games.

Murdoch proclaimed “we have never been in a better position.” Some of that is clearly CEO talk, but it also could be a message to those with concerns over Fox’s ability to pay for a new round of NFL deals. The Wall Street Journal reported that Murdoch’s father, Rupert, had met with President Trump to warn that if the NFL moved more packages to streamers, it could threaten the ability of local stations to offer news. The move is interpreted by some that Fox, by far the smallest of the NFL’s media business partners, is worried about affording the next hike in NFL rights fees.

On an earnings call yesterday morning, the younger Murdoch said he expects Fox to be in business with the NFL for a long time, but added no real talks had begun. On a call three months earlier, Murdoch then said if necessary Fox would “rebalance” its sports portfolio to ensure Fox had the NFL. In other words, Fox is okay cutting other sports to afford The Shield.

In the end, these broadcasters have such premium sports content, it likely doesn’t matter that one went heavy on sports during their Upfront yesterday, and the other sparse. As one of the last slices of media content that is mostly watched live, sports attracts hordes of viewers, and thus ad dollars.

I will say as a sports fan and writer, however, the best reality show in entertainment isn’t on Bravo, but as Jerry Jones often observes, it’s on Sundays. So NBCU, please next year, focus a little more on the reality show with the tackling.

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