NBC Sports Network
Launched	July 1, 1995 (as Outdoor Life Network)
Owned by	NBCUniversal
Picture format	480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV)
Headquarters	New York City
Formerly called	Outdoor Life Network (1995–2006) Versus (2006–2012)
Sister channel(s)	NBC Sports Golf Channel Comcast SportsNet Universal Sports Universal HD
Availability
Satellite
Dish Network	159 (SD/HD)
DirecTV	603 (SD/HD) 604 (SD)/604-1 (HD) NHL playoffs overflow
Cable
Available on most cable systems	Check local listings
Verizon FiOS	90 (SD) 590 (HD)
IPTV
AT&T U-verse	640 (SD) 1640 (HD)

The NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) (formerly Versus and originally Outdoor Life Network) is a sports-oriented cable television channel in the United States operated as a division of NBC Sports. It previously launched on July 1, 1995, as the Outdoor Life Network (OLN), which was dedicated to programming primarily involving fishing, hunting, outdoor adventure programs, and outdoor sports. By the turn of the 21st century, OLN became better known for its extensive coverage of the Tour de France, but eventually began covering more "mainstream" sporting events — resulting in its relaunch as Versus in September 2006.

Comcast, the original owner of Versus, acquired a majority stake in media company NBC Universal in 2011. As a result, Comcast merged the operations of its cable channels with those of NBC. In particular, it aligned the operation of its sports channels with NBC's sports division, NBC Sports. On January 2, 2012, Versus was re-branded as the NBC Sports Network to reflect these changes.

History[link]

As the Outdoor Life Network[link]

The channel originally launched as the Outdoor Life Network (or OLN) on July 1, 1995; the name was licensed from Outdoor Life magazine. Its programming consisted of hunting, fishing, and outdoor adventure shows. In its early days, the channel reached around one million homes.^[1]

In 1999, OLN acquired the U.S. broadcast rights to the Tour de France for $3 million. Coverage of the Tour on OLN brought substantially greater viewership to the then fledgling channel, due in part to the growing popularity of American rider Lance Armstrong. In 2004, where Armstrong would aim for a record-breaking 6th straight Tour de France title, OLN would devote over 344 hours in July to coverage of the Tour, along with documentaries and other original programming surrounding the event — which was promoted through a $20 million dollar advertising campaign.^[2]

Overall, while its coverage of the Tour de France helped OLN expand its carriage to over 60 million homes, critics became concerned that OLN's coverage had placed too much of its focus on Armstrong as its main attraction for viewers, and doubted if OLN could sustain itself without the viewership that Lance Armstrong's presence had brought to its coverage.^[1] Some critics had jokingly referred to OLN as the "Only Lance Network" due to its overemphasis on the American rider.^[3]

Following the 2005 Tour (where Lance Armstrong captured his seventh victory in the race, and announced his retirement from cycling afterward), OLN debuted a new lineup of programming — anchored by repeats of the popular reality television series Survivor. OLN's executives believed that bringing Survivor into its lineup would fit well with the new direction it had planned for OLN, and could attract viewership from fans of the show who had watched it on CBS.^[4] Around the same period, OLN also acquired the rights to the Dakar Rally, America's Cup, the Boston Marathon, and the Iditarod. OLN planned to cover these multi-day events in a similar style to how it covered the Tour, hoping that its coverage might bring "surprise" results for the channel.^[4] Due in part to Lance's absence from the Tour in 2006, its ratings for live coverage of the first four stages of the race drew in 49% fewer viewers than previous years.^[3]

OLN and the NHL[link]

In May 2005, ESPN failed to renew its broadcasting contract with the National Hockey League after rejecting a $60 million offer to extend its coverage into the 2005-06 NHL season, and the league rejecting its alternate proposal for a revenue sharing agreement similar to the one it had established with NBC. With the NFL also shopping a new late-season package of Thursday and Saturday night games to potential broadcasters, speculation began to surface that Comcast would bid on the new NHL contract as its first step to transforming OLN into a maintream sports channel that could compete with ESPN.^[4] Comcast already owned majority control of the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers, and four Comcast SportsNet regional sports networks.^[5]

In August 2005, ESPN officially declined to match Comcast's offer, and OLN officially acquired cable television rights to the NHL beginning in the 2005–2006 season in a three year deal worth close to $200 million. The new deal would include 58 regular season games on Monday and Tuesday nights, coverage of the NHL All-Star Game, conference finals, and the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals.^[5] With the help of its new NHL package, by June 2006, OLN had now reached 75 million subscribers. However, due in part to OLN's lesser carriage in comparison to ESPN, the NHL's ratings that season had suffered in comparison.^[6]

In 2006, OLN broadcast selected games in the Arena Football League's 2006 season. They televised a weekly regular-season game for 11 weeks as well as a wild card playoff game.^[7] However, the agreement was not renewed and was later picked up by ESPN, who also acquired a minority stake in the league's ownership.^[8]

As Versus[link]

In April 2006, Comcast officially announced that it would be renaming Outdoor Life Network to 'Versus in the Fall of 2006. As the network had shifted beyond simply "outdoor" programming, the name "Versus" was intended to represent the common element of competition within its lineup.^[9] OLN's re-launch as Versus officially occurred on September 25, 2006.

Among the new programming acquired by Versus included a number of combat sports, beginning with a series of boxing programs promoted by Bob Arum's Top Rank group. They also began televising Chuck Norris's World Combat League, a kickboxing promotion where fights are contested in a unique round ring without ropes. Versus entered into a partnership with World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) to bring mixed martial arts events to the channel, with the first being broadcast live on June 3, 2007. They aired all the WEC events, except for WEC 48, which aired on pay-per-view, with live preliminary fights being aired on Spike TV.^{[citation needed]}

They also added a variety of sports events as part of the rebranding, including men's and women's college basketball, high school basketball,^[10][11] a weekly "game of the week" for the National Lacrosse League, darts competitions, the Major Indoor Soccer League, and the USA Sevens, one of the nine tournaments (then eight) that make up the IRB Sevens World Series, the top annual circuit in the sevens version of rugby union.

In addition, the channel also added a package of college football games to its lineup, with games from the Mountain West Conference, Pac-10 (now Pac-12) and Big 12 conferences.^[12][13][14] totaling 19 scheduled college football games on the channel during 2007.

They secured coverage for the 2007 America's Cup, which was also a staple on ESPN and ESPN2 for years. They began to show qualifying regattas in late 2005. They also aired the Louis Vuitton Cup for challengers in 2007, and the America's Cup match between the Louis Vuitton winner and current champions, won by Alinghi of Switzerland in Valencia, Spain. In 2006, they picked up American broadcast rights (in conjunction with The Tennis Channel) of Davis Cup events.

Versus, with NBC Sports and the World Championship Sports Network (now Universal Sports), broadcast coverage of the 2007 World Championships in Athletics from Osaka, Japan, as well as the 2009 World Championships in Athletics from Berlin, Germany.

On January 28, 2008, Versus and the NHL extended their deal through the 2010–2011 season.^[15] In June 2008, operations were moved from Stamford, Connecticut, to Comcast's headquarters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.^[16] On August 7, 2008, they announced a 10-year deal with the Indy Racing League to broadcast at least 13 IndyCar Series events a year in HD, beginning in 2009.^[17] The channel would also broadcast various motorsports series on its Lucas Oil Motorsports Hour program such as USAC and Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series.

The channel aired the 96th Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League in 2008.^{[citation needed]}

The channel began airing games from the United Football League in 2009. The first season Championship aired on November 27, 2009. The UFL would return to the channel for a second season in 2010.^{[citation needed]}

On April 5, 2010, The Daily Line debuted. The show consisted of a four-person panel (host Liam McHugh, handicapper Rob DeAngelis, comedian Reese Waters, and Jenn Sterger) which discussed, often with heavy satire, sports-related topics that were popular that day.^[18] However, the show was canned due to low viewership on November 4, 2010.^[19]

The Ultimate Fighting Championship would air two live events on the channel due to the new contract agreement with UFC sister promotion World Extreme Cagefighting. The first edition of UFC on Versus aired on March 21, 2010 headlined by Brandon Vera vs. Jon Jones in the Light Heavyweight division. The second event aired on August 1 with Jon Jones facing Vladimir Matyushenko. Also as part of the agreement with the UFC, several UFC Countdown shows would air. There was a countdown show the week of a PPV, usually lasting for one hour, and covering 2-3 of the biggest fights on the card. In August 2011, the UFC announced a new broadcasting deal with the channels of rival Fox Sports, which would begin to take effect in November 2011.^[20]

They had also struck a deal with the NBA to air 10 regular season NBA Development League games as well as 6 playoff games a year. Games will air Saturday nights. In total, they would air 16 NBA Development League games^[21] in addition to 25 hours of NBA programming specials.

Starting in August 2010, they aired nine races of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour, Wednesdays at 7 p.m. The races originated from a variety of locations, including Stafford Motor Speedway, Tri-County Speedway, and Thompson Motor Speedway.^{[citation needed]}

Merger with NBC Sports[link]

In February 2011, Comcast acquired a majority share in NBC Universal, and merged its content operations into the company. As part of the acquisition, Versus, and Comcast's other sports channels, began to be integrated into the NBC Sports division. Coinciding with the merger, President Jamie Davis was replaced by Comcast Sports Group President Jon Litner. Litner will now oversee the channel, in addition to his other duties following the Comcast takeover.^[22]

In March 2011, Versus expanded its college football coverage by becoming the cable partner for NBC's coverage of Notre Dame football, airing replays of Notre Dame games, and the first ever live broadcast of the team's annual intramural game. Its coverage began with a marathon of three classic Fighting Irish games on March 17, St. Patrick's Day, to serve as a prelude to its coverage of the intramural.^[23]

For the 2011 season, Versus also returned to airing the National Lacrosse League with a 9 game package, starting with the 2011 All-Star Game and culminating with the Champion's Cup final.^[24] Beginning with the 2012 NLL season, U.S. broadcast rights would shift to CBS Sports Network, which will carry eight regular season games.^[25]

On June 6, 2011, it was revealed that NBCUniversal would be extending their rights to the Olympic Games through 2020, outbidding competing bids by Fox Sports and ESPN in a $4.38 billion contract. It is expected that NBCSN will participate in NBC's overall coverage beginning at the 2012 Summer Olympics.^[26][27][28]

Relaunch as the NBC Sports Network[link]

In April 2011, NBC Sports and Versus announced they had reached a ten-year extension to the television contract with the National Hockey League worth nearly $2 billion over the life of the contract. As part of the announcement, Dick Ebersol, the former chairman of NBC Sports, said that Versus would be renamed "within 90 days" in order to reflect the synergy resulting from the merger.^[29] However, no announcement of a new name would come until August 1, 2011, when Comcast officially announced that Versus would be relaunched as the NBC Sports Network on January 2, 2012. The relaunch coincided with NBC's coverage of the NHL Winter Classic, which took place on the same day.^[26]

In an interview with TV Guide, president of programming Jon Miller detailed that NBC Sports Network would be "radically different" from Versus in many ways. His goal was for Versus for to become a credible "full-service sports network", with a new lineup of sports news and talk programs and live event coverage. Programming such as Whacked Out Sports and The T.Ocho Show were dropped from the lineup, as Miller thought that low-brow programming would hurt the channel's credibility. The channel began an initiative to begin producing new original programming — including NBC Sports Talk and the weekly CNBC Sports Biz (hosted by CNBC's sports business reporter Darren Rovell), which both debuted in the fall of 2011. Bob Costas will host the new series Costas Tonight, which will consist of monthly interview specials, and quarterly town hall specials — the first of which aired from Indianapolis on February 2, 2012, as part of NBC's overall coverage of Super Bowl XLVI.^[30]

In preparation for the re-launch, NBC also made efforts to expand its current broadcasting relationships and acquire new sports properties to air on the channel. The first of these was announced on August 10, 2011, when NBC Sports announced a new broadcasting partnership with Major League Soccer, where a slate of 38 regular season games, 3 playoff games, and 2 national team matches will be aired by NBC Sports Network during the 2012 season.^[31] On the same day, the UFL announced that it had not renewed its contract with the channel, and that the league would instead give those games to regional sports networks.^[32]

In November 2011, the channel also announced a new package of college hockey games, beginning with a game on December 31, 2011 featuring Boston University at Notre Dame, followed by a series of Friday night games beginning in January 2012, and national coverage of the Hockey East conference tournament (its coverage may be subject to blackouts in New England, since NESN may still cover the event locally). Additionally, NBC Sports Network will air Notre Dame's home games beginning in the 2013–2014 season, when it will join the Hockey East conference. NBC Sports Network's college hockey coverage will be produced by the same staff responsible for its NHL coverage.^[33][34]

On February 13, 2012, the Colonial Athletic Association became the first collegiate athletic conference to sign a broadcast agreement with the NBC Sports Network. The five year deal beginning with the 2012-13 season, will provide national television coverage for a minimum of 12 men’s basketball games each year, including the semifinals and finals of the CAA Men’s Basketball Championship. The NBC Sports Network will televise a minimum of five CAA Football games annually. Comcast SportsNet regional networks are also involved in the deal^[35]

Carriage[link]

In October 2005, Versus elected not to provide NHL coverage to a number of distributors, including EchoStar (Dish Network) and Cablevision, both of which refused Comcast's request to place Versus on a much higher-penetration package. During this time, NHL coverage was blacked out on these systems, replaced with other programming. It was believed that the reason behind these blackouts had to do with a penalty fee that Comcast would have had to pay the NHL if they did not significantly increase their distribution.^{[citation needed]}

While Cablevision eventually came to an agreement making OLN/Versus available to any customer with digital cable, EchoStar retaliated by pulling OLN from its service; it was Dish Network's stance that few of its customers would be willing to have the channel if it meant raising rates. On April 24, 2006, the same date that OLN announced the late-September name change to Versus, Dish Network and OLN reached a long term agreement to restore the channel.

At the beginning of September 2009, DirecTV pulled Versus from its lineup, as it was unable to reach terms on a rate increase demanded by Comcast. In public statements (including a message shown on the channel which formerly carried Versus), DirecTV scolded Comcast for its "unfair and outrageous demands", and considered the company to be "simply piggish" in its demands for higher rates, as it described Versus as "a paid programming and infomercial channel with occasional sporting events."^[36] On March 15, 2010 an agreement was reached between the sides and Versus returned to DirecTV's lineup. The channel was returned to its original package on the service, Choice Xtra.^[37]

High definition[link]

A 1080i high definition simulcast was launched in January 2007. Initially, it shared an HD feed with sister property the Golf Channel, marketed as Versus/Golf HD, airing Golf Channel programming during the daytime hours and Versus programming at night. The shared channel was replaced by individual HD feeds for both channels in December 2008.^[38]

Live Sporting Events[link]

• NHL on NBC
  • NHL All-Star Game
• MLS on NBC
• IndyCar Series
• 2013 America's Cup Sailing Races
• Mountain West Conference Football
• Mountain West Conference Basketball
• Colonial Athletic Association Conference Basketball (Fall 2012-2017)
• Colonial Athletic Association Conference Football (Fall 2012-2016)
• Ivy League basketball (starting 2011-12 season)
• College Football on NBC
• College Hockey on NBC
• Davis Cup Tennis
• Breeders' Cup
• Triple Crown Preliminary Races
• Summer at Saratoga Horse Racing Series
• Cycling on the "Epic Cycle" banner including;
  • Tour de France
  • Tour of California
  • USA Pro Cycling Challenge
• SCCA World Challenge
• IIHF Men's Ice Hockey World Championship
• NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour, Whelen Southern Modified Tour
• CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament
• Fight Night Boxing Series
• PBR
• 2012 Summer Olympics

Original Programming[link]

• NBC SportsTalk - Weekdays, 6 PM
• NHL Live - Sunday - Wednesday, Before NHL games
• College Football Talk - Mondays, 5 PM during college football season
• CNBC Sports Biz: Game On! - Fridays, 7 PM
• Costas Tonight - Monthly, 8 PM
• NHL 36 - Monthly, 6:30 PM
• IndyCar 36 - Monthly, 1:30 PM
• Fight Night 36 - Quarterly, 10:30 PM
• The First Word with Ahmad Rashad - Monthly, 8:30 PM

Despite its relaunch as a more sports-intensive channel, Versus maintained blocks of outdoors programming under the name Versus Country during parts of its daytime, weekend, and Friday night programming. As part of its re-branding as an NBC Sports service, these programming blocks were re-branded as NBC Sports Outdoors in December 2011, and the Friday night block was moved to Thursdays.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website (Mobile)
  • NBC Sports on Facebook
  • NBC Sports on Twitter
  • NBC Sports on YouTube
  • NBC Sports on Google Plus
  • NBC Sports Network on Twitter
• NBC Olympics Website
• NBC Sports Shop
• Official Announcement of Launch of NBC Sports Network
• Sports Business: NBC Must Redefine Versus To Make the TV Deal Work
• Eulogy: The 12 things we’ll miss about the VERSUS network

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