After Warner defeat, Comcast loads up on Winter Olympics, Super Bowl and NBA
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Shaking off its defeat in the Warner Bros.bidding war, Comcast is focusing on its big sports bet.
NBCUniversal will broadcast the Winter Olympics, Super Bowl, NBA, Major League Baseball and the World Cup this year.The Philadelphia giant released its fourth-quarter earnings Thursday and its sports-heavy strategy is revealing both the benefits and costs.NBCUniversal’s new NBA deal has had the hoped-for effect of boosting subscribers to its Peacock streaming service.Peacock now has 44 million customers and streaming revenue grew 23% to $1.6 billion.
But Peacock’s losses swelled to $552 million in the fourth quarter as the streaming service absorbed the expense of NBC’s NBA TV rights agreement and an exclusive NFL game.Comcast executives said during an earnings call that Peacock reduced its full-year losses by $700 million compared to 2024.Last year, the service lost $1.1 billion and profitability is still a ways off.Comcast Chairman Brian Roberts noted that the entertainment industry is in the throes of a major transformation and that NBCUniversal has laid the groundwork for its own metamorphosis.
His company has made a sharp pivot away from NBC’s 1990s glory days of “Must See TV” comedies, water-cooler dramas like “ER” and “The West Wing,” as well as a fleet of formidable cable channels, including USA and CNBC.This month, the still-profitable cable channels were spun off into a new company called Versant.Hollywood Inc.
As part of the deal, NBCUniversal and Peacock will pay $1.5 million to L.A.County’s Department of Consumer and Business Affairs; $100,000 to cover the investigation costs and $2 million in civil penalties.Comcast entered last fall’s high-stakes Warner auction with hopes of combining NBCUniversal with Warner Bros.
to create a new Hollywood behemoth.But Netflix swooped in with a $82.7-billion deal and David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance al...