FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, December 23rd, 2019

NBC SPORTS GROUP CELEBRATES A DECADE OF MILESTONES

Most-Viewed Event in U.S. Television History (2012 London Olympics)

Most-Watched Show in U.S. TV History (Super Bowl XLIX) 

NBC’s Sunday Night Football is Primetime TV’s #1 Show for Unprecedented 8 Consecutive Years…and Counting (2011-18)

NBC Delivers 209 Sports Broadcasts With 20+ Million TV Viewers – #1 Among All Media Companies in the Decade 

Most-Watched NHL Game on Record (2019 Stanley Cup Final, Blues-Bruins Game 7)

Most-Watched Live Premier League Match in U.S. TV History (Arsenal-Manchester United, Nov. 2014)

 

STAMFORD, Conn. – December 23, 2019 (UPDATED December 31, 2019) – NBC Sports Group – the home to many of sports media’s first-ever game presentations on radio, television, and live streaming – next week completes the Decade of the 2010s, which was highlighted by viewership records, milestones and firsts.

Over the course of the decade, NBC broadcast 209 sports programs which averaged 20+ million viewers – ranking #1 among all media companies.

NBC Sports’ first live event of the decade, the 2010 NHL Winter Classic on Jan. 1, 2010, was held at historic Fenway Park in Boston, while the last will be more than 4,000 miles away with the Women’s 10K at the FIS Cross-Country World Cup Tour de Ski next Tuesday, Dec. 31 in Toblach, Italy (9 a.m. ET on Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA).

In the 3,650 days between those two events, NBC Sports Group had quite a decade:

TV HISTORY

  • Most-Viewed Sporting Event in U.S. TV History – 2012 London Olympics (reached 217 million TV viewers)
  • Most-Watched Program in TV history – Super Bowl XLIX (averaged 114.4 million TV viewers)
  • #1 Primetime Show for Unprecedented Eight Consecutive Seasons (on pace for nine with 2019) – Sunday Night Football
  • Most Dominant Summer Games Ever, Among Adults 18-49 – 2016 Rio Olympics (329% advantage vs. other broadcast networks combined)
  • Most Dominant Winter Games Ever, Average Viewership – 2018 PyeongChang Olympics (82% advantage vs. other broadcast networks combined)
  • Most-Watched NHL Game on Record – 2019 Stanley Cup Final, Blues-Bruins Game 7 (Total Audience Delivery of 8.9 million viewers)
  • Most-Watched Stanley Cup Final on Record (Series) – 2013 Blackhawks-Bruins
  • Most-Watched NHL Regular-Season Game on Record – 2011 NHL Winter Classic, Capitals-Penguins at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh (4.53 million TV viewers)
  • Most-Watched Live Premier League Match in U.S. TV History – Arsenal-Manchester United (Total Audience Delivery of 1.43 million viewers, 11/22/14)
  • Highest-Rated NBA Regular-Season Game Ever on a Regional Sports Network – NBC Sports Bay Area (23.22 HH rating for Warriors-Grizzlies, as Warriors broke NBA record for regular-season victories, 4/13/16)

 

FIRSTS

  • First Sports Program to Rank #1 in Primetime for Full TV Season – NBC Sunday Night Football, 2011 NFL Season
  • First Media Company to Stream the Super Bowl – Super Bowl XLVI on NBC
  • First Female Executive Producer of National Sports Network – Molly Solomon, GOLF Channel, Feb. 29, 2012 (Solomon was named Executive Producer and President, NBC Olympics Production & Executive Producer, GOLF Channel, Nov. 19, 2019).
  • First Horse Racing Triple Crown in 37 Years – American Pharoah, 2015 on NBC
  • First Open Championship Presented by NBC Sports Group – The 2016 Open at Royal Troon on GOLF Channel and NBC
  • First Augusta National Women’s Amateur – Presented by NBC Sports, April 6, 2019
  • First Indianapolis 500 on NBC – May 26, 2019

 

KEY DATES

January 29, 2011 — Comcast completes acquisition of NBCUniversal. The broad reach and storied history of NBC Sports unites with Comcast’s 24/7 ability to super-serve fans to create the NBC Sports Group.

May 19, 2011 — Mark Lazarus is appointed Chairman, NBC Sports Group. Under his leadership, the company acquired media rights to and furthered relationships with the Olympics, NFL, NASCAR, INDYCAR, the Premier League, the NHL, and Notre Dame, among many other partnerships and renewals. (Lazarus was promoted to Chairman, NBCUniversal Broadcast, Cable, Sports and News in January 2019).

October 21, 2011 – Telemundo acquires the rights to the FIFA World Cup. Telemundo Deportes, the company’s sports division, has since grown to become the home of the biggest global sports in Spanish-language media, including the FIFA Men’s World Cup, FIFA Women’s World Cup, Olympic Games, and Premier League.  Leading into its presentation of 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, the company opened the Telemundo Center global headquarters which set the standard for Hispanic media as the only next-generation, multimedia production facility with news, sports, entertainment, studios, international and digital all under one roof.  Telemundo Deportes’ presentation of the 2018 FIFA World Cup delivered the most live-streamed sports event in Spanish-language history, while its coverage of the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup was the most-watched Women’s World Cup in Spanish-language history.

January 2, 2012 – VERSUS is officially renamed NBC Sports Network (and two years later is rebranded NBCSN). Under NBC Sports Group, the network reaches new heights, growing to a peak of 85.2 million viewers in October 2017, and delivering its best year in Total Day and primetime viewership in 2018. In addition, NBCSN has grown Total Day viewership 42% from the year prior to the rebrand (95,000 average viewers in 2011) to calendar 2019 (135,000), which is pacing to be the largest audience growth in that span for any sports cable network.

July 2016 – NBC Sports Digital launches NBC Sports Gold, its direct-to-consumer live streaming product that provides sports fans with access to exclusive premium sports events and content, live and on-demand, at an affordable price. Launched with a single cycling product, NBC Sports Gold currently offers 18 individual sports “passes.”

July 18, 2016 — NBC Sports Group acquires SportsEngine, an industry-leading sports technology platform in the youth and amateur sports participation market based in Minneapolis, Minn. The technology platform helps sports teams of youth organizations improve the management of their operations and provides valuable services for their athletes, parents, coaches, volunteers and fans.

November 2, 2016 — The International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee and NBCUniversal announce the creation of a comprehensive Olympic Channel content and distribution partnership in the United States. “Olympic Channel: Home of Team USA” offers fans year-round Olympic-sport programming from around the world, with an emphasis on their favorite American athletes and teams.

February 9, 2017 – Mike Tirico is named NBC Olympics primetime host, succeeding Bob Costas, who served as NBC’s primetime host for a U.S. record 11 Olympics. Tirico made his primetime debut at The Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, in 2018.

July 24, 2018 – Pete Bevacqua is named President, NBC Sports Group, responsible for overseeing NBC Sports Group’s unprecedented collection of assets and platforms.

December 26, 2018 — NBC Sports launches free-to-play NBC Sports Predictor games app, partnering with Boom Fantasy. The app gives eligible fans the chance to win tens of thousands of dollars in cash prizes in free, simple contests across multiple NBC Sports properties.

 

NUMBERS

2.71 Billion – Live streaming minutes consumed of NBC Olympics’ coverage of Rio 2016, marking the most live-streamed sports event ever.

17.6 Million – New followers signing on to NBC Sports’ accounts across multiple sports on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, since Jan. 1, 2013

15 Million — GolfNow, the online tee-time marketplace and technology partner to thousands of golf courses and millions of registered users, surpassed 15 million rounds of golf in one year (Dec. 31, 2015).

300,000 – Square-foot NBC Sports International Broadcast Center in Stamford, Connecticut, opened June 2013.

17,025 – Hours of Olympic coverage presented by NBCUniversal across the 2010 Vancouver, 2012 London, 2014 Sochi, 2016 Rio, and 2018 PyeongChang Olympics.

164 – Hours of television coverage of the last two Paralympic Games, with records set for Winter (2018 PyeongChang, 94 hours) and Summer (2016 Rio, 70 hours) competitions.

100 – Number of NASCAR Cup Series races on NBC, NBCSN, CNBC and USA since the start of the current rights agreement in 2015.

13 – Consecutive years that NBC’s Football Night in America has ranked as the most-watched studio show in sports, each year since its debut in Sept. 2006 (on pace for 14 with the 2019 NFL season).

–NBC SPORTS GROUP–