Versant CEO speculates NFL negotiations put MLB, NHL, Premier League rights in play

Courtesy of Versant

Versant is a unique company in the sense that it has the ethos of a scrappy upstart, but it derives most of its revenue from legacy cable networks with almost no growth prospects. It’s why the company has been so focused on making acquisitions outside of linear television, and growing the non-TV assets it already owns.

But at the end of the day, Versant is still very much in the business of extracting value out of the ever-declining cable television ecosystem. And the company expressed optimism about one aspect of that business during an earnings call on Thursday morning: sports.

Versant’s USA Sports brand already has a number of key media rights deals under its belt, most of which are holdovers from when its portfolio of cable channels remained under the NBC umbrella. USA Sports holds extensive golf rights through Golf Channel, in addition to early coverage of two major championships on USA Network, an extensive WNBA package, 10 NASCAR Cup Series events, various college sports, Premier League, and more.

Versant CEO Mark Lazarus sees an opportunity to expand that offering in the near future, particularly if/when current NFL broadcast partners are forced to shell out more money to retain pro football rights. On Thursday’s earnings call, Lazarus said he believes NFL renewals “will put pressure” on media companies that could result in decisions to cut other sports in order to afford the NFL. Brian Steinberg of Variety reported the remarks.

Specifically, Lazarus called out baseball, soccer, Premier League, and hockey rights that could become available as a result of the NFL’s projected spoils. He’s not the first media CEO to forecast this reality, either. Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch recently said his company will look to “rebalance” its sports portfolio to afford the NFL.

Fox itself would seem likely to give up the World Cup following this summer, considering a deal for the 2030 tournament hasn’t been done, and FIFA has already sold rights for the 2027 and 2031 women’s editions to Netflix. Fox also pays for the most-expensive package of MLB rights, which includes the World Series each year. That package expires in 2028.