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Welcome back to The Varsity. I’m John Ourand, basking in the
glory of delivering an astounding 7.5 rating in Dayton last Thursday on the CBS Evening News. Yes, since you asked, that’s a 21 share. Come on, Bari, let’s keep the good times going…
Like many of you, I’ve been tracking Duke’s lawsuit against its quarterback Darian Mensah, who is under contract in Durham but
nevertheless expressed his intention to enter the transfer portal tomorrow amid rumored interest from schools including Miami. (Mark Schlabach has a good write-up on the case.) Every single stakeholder in college sports has been looking for federal help to create rules around the professionalization of
college sports. Absent congressional action, a situation like this might expedite the creation of a roadmap for these types of cases—ones where teenagers and young adults, who have scant negotiating experience, try to maximize their value while schools enjoy some peace of mind through signed contracts. As NCAA president Charlie Baker told me last week, he views these types of flare-ups as “growing pains.”
At deadline: During its earnings call this
afternoon, Netflix leadership announced that the company would be increasing the amount it spends on content this year by 10 percent. Perhaps this will be an antidote to flatlining growth rates in the U.S. and Canada, or a way to placate the creative community, which remains unnerved about the company’s signed merger agreement with WBD for its studio, streaming, and library businesses. Either way, sports leagues are salivating over the news. Lucas Shaw has a good
write-up here.
In today’s issue, Julia Alexander analyzes NBC’s push to get Gen Z to watch more sports on their own terms. The network signed an interesting deal with Japan’s Nippon TV that should help draw in younger consumers who are more comfortable with their phone than a TV remote (if they even
have one). As always, you’ll need to become a member of our Inner Circle tier to access Julia’s work. It’s worth it, and you can afford it.
Mentioned in this issue: Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Drake Maye, Mike Vrabel, Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau,
Neal Mohan, Justin Fields, Dante Moore, Pat McAfee, Dave Portnoy, Tim Canary, Rick Cordella, Brian Roberts, Adam Mosseri, Sam Darnold, and many more…
Take it away, Julia… |
Stat of the Week: 15 Years
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That’s how long it’s been since we’ve seen an AFC Championship Game without the Patriots or the
Chiefs. That’s half of Patrick Mahomes’s lifetime! Sure, eight of those appearances were thanks to the Brady–Belichick dynasty, but Drake Maye and Mike Vrabel’s Patriots managed to re-secure their spot following a rather lackluster win over the Texans on Sunday.
I’m all for dynasties, but perhaps it’s time for another of the conference’s 14 teams to show some consistency. The Jaguars haven’t been back to the AFC
Championship since the 2017 season, the Steelers since 2016’s, and the Chargers since 2007’s. I won’t even mention the Jets (2011—their last playoff game, as it turns out…) or the Dolphins (1993). It’s just not kind. |
- Netflix’s Q4 baseball math: Although we didn’t learn all that much about Netflix’s grand sports ambitions during the company’s earnings call tonight, we did get a sense of what’s exciting co-C.E.O.s Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos. Sarandos several times brought up the World Baseball Classic, which Netflix recently secured for $50 million a year, as one of the first major Netflix live events to air outside of the U.S. Meanwhile,
Peters provided more insight into the value of those global audiences. When asked about Netflix’s overall engagement (about 96 billion hours were streamed in the second half of 2025, up 2 percent year over year), Peters pointed out that not all views are culturally equivalent. The Japanese, for example, watch far less television on average than Americans, but the country is one of the fastest-growing regions for Netflix’s business.
Having the World Baseball Classic may help drive more
appointment viewing in Japan—especially as engagement has slowed amid growing competition from other streamers as well as social video platforms like YouTube and Instagram. Of course, live sports also give Netflix more premium ad inventory to sell, which is now a vital part of its revenue mix. Sarandos and Peters are projecting that advertising revenue in 2026 will double last year’s total of $1.5 billion. If Netflix can increase engagement and incremental revenue from customers in regions that
watch less in general, the company might find itself more willing to bet big on those NFL rights when they come up… after they complete their $83 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, that is. - What does DeChambeau know?: Somehow, golf is continuing its surprising popularity streak. PGA Tour viewership increased by 22 percent this past season. The Masters’ audience jumped 33 percent year over year, which made Rory McIlroy’s win
the most-watched since 2018. The rise in interest is largely thanks to YouTube and social media, where Gen Z and younger Millennials consume much of their links content.
The momentum presents an interesting opportunity for a top player like Bryson DeChambeau, whose contract with LIV Golf ends this year. Last week, the two-time major winner told
Front Office Sports that exclusively playing in major tournaments while focusing on his YouTube channel was an “incredibly viable option.” (DeChambeau also has plenty of lucrative endorsement deals.) He added that “the financial opportunities are there,” and that he enjoys the freedom of his channel, which, per The Athletic, was a point
of contention between DeChambeau and LIV officials in 2024.
DeChambeau’s comments almost certainly excited YouTube chief Neal Mohan, who is trying to find more premium sports content that fits his audience. Golf, obviously, revolves almost entirely around individual players instead of teams, which gives media-savvy athletes room to experiment on his platform. Plus, if DeChambeau does end up going solo, don’t be surprised to see other athletes in individual sports follow
his lead. - Eligibility maxing: One of the few joys of having a partner who’s obsessed with the New York Jets is draft season. Right now, all eyes are on the team’s first-round pick and the hope of a promising new quarterback after the failed Justin Fields experiment. But they wouldn’t be the Jets if something didn’t go terribly wrong. Case in point: Dante Moore, Oregon’s star quarterback, is
deferring his pro career a year and returning to Oregon—a move that many consider a direct response to likely being targeted by New York’s saddest team at No. 2 overall.
But it’s also true that playing college football is much more potentially lucrative these days. Before N.I.L. rules went into effect, around 130 underclassmen entered the NFL draft, according to college athletics tracking firm On3. In 2023, that number dropped to 82, and by 2024, there were just 58—the
smallest number of non-seniors in the draft in more than a decade. 49ers G.M. John Lynch told On3 that fewer underclassmen entering the draft means that chances to hit on a late-round pick will be slimmer than ever. It’s a predicament, he said, that “we’re going to be faced with each year.”
At the same time, it’s hard to blame the athletes—especially when they are choosing between a million dollars and another shot at a national championship, and making a bit more money
but handing over their future to the Florham Park brain trust.
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A partnership with Nippon TV will give NBC access to new technology
meant to optimize its sports content for younger audiences. It’s a timely play—but one that also belies Peacock’s larger problem with viewer engagement. |
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At this point, every sports media executive understands that capturing a younger generation of fans
requires mastering the dark art of shortform video. After all, Gen Z is 65 percent more likely than Gen X to name YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram as their primary viewing source, according to the research marketing firm WSC. And while plenty of TV executives are hoping to attract younger fans by platforming social media–native talents like Pat McAfee and Dave Portnoy, lasting breakthroughs are more likely to happen on the technological front.
That’s why I
was fascinated by NBC’s recent partnership with Japan’s Nippon TV, which will allow the network to create, distribute, and curate sports content at a much faster pace. In short, NBC Sports will use Nippon’s AiDi artificial intelligence software to track players in real time using facial recognition technology, while implementing automatic 9:16 cropping—the same ratio as YouTube Shorts and TikToks. Tim Canary, NBC Sports’s S.V.P. of engineering,
said this will allow broadcasting teams to more easily control “when the scene switches from a tight to a wide shot,” and that fans will “never lose the athlete [they’re] tracking” during live coverage. Theoretically, this would make it much easier for users watching NBC Sports on their phone to flip from a horizontal to
vertical view. It would also allow NBC to more quickly generate clips optimized specifically for their own vertical feeds—like Peacock’s “Can’t Miss Highlights” section for NBA content—or third-party social platforms.
Obviously, the deal arrives several weeks before the Winter Olympics get underway in Milan, though the network isn’t announcing when it will start using the new tool. If you recall, the 2024 Paris Olympics were a massive boon for NBCUniversal: Viewership was up 77 percent
across streaming and linear compared to the Tokyo Games in 2021. Meanwhile, internal reports found that 36 percent of audiences decided to watch the Paris Games live after coming across clips on social media, and shortform video viewership on company-operated social media channels rose 432 percent compared to Tokyo in 2021. NBC is presumably hoping that their new, mobile-first approach will not only capitalize on these trends, but also keep audiences engaged through the Super Bowl (my bet is on
a Pats vs. Sam Darnold matchup, a legit Jets nightmare) and the NBA All-Star Game, both of which also arrive in February. |
Of course, even with the new technology in place, there’s no guarantee that audiences
will stick around. After the Paris Olympics, Peacock’s internal data did show that shortform Games content attracted new subscribers. That year, the streamer added 3 million subs in Q3, with a significant boost coming in through the Olympics, but growth stalled in Q4 before starting up again in Q1 2025 thanks to playoff football. But NBC has struggled with retention: According to Antenna, Peacock’s churn rate sat at 9 percent in December—4 percentage points higher than the weighted
average for every major streaming service, and 8 points higher than Netflix.
For NBC Sports president Rick Cordella, the hope must partially be that deploying Nippon’s AiDi technology will also lead viewers to stick around after the broadcast and search for highlights from star athletes. That might, in part, help with the streamer’s stickiness problem. (The Japanese tech should also make life easier for NBCU’s video teams, given that they won’t have to
produce brand-new vertical edits.)
For now, it seems like a savvy, forward-thinking move. But I’ve also argued for some time that trying to emulate Instagram Reels or TikTok on a streaming platform almost never works—most people aren’t interested in a content feed dominated by a single theme or type of programming; they want their feeds to reflect all of their interests. Indeed, maybe instead of trying to chart their own path, NBC should focus on squeezing more out of existing
social platforms, where viewers are already hanging out. |
It’s unlikely that Comcast C.E.O. Brian Roberts is getting ready to make some kind
of wild investment in a social media or A.I. app—but his programming teams should be focusing on the new opportunities presented by social media platforms. As Instagram lands on TV sets, and IG boss Adam Mosseri tries to sniff out more connected TV advertising revenue, there may be opportunities for networks like NBC—as well as ESPN, Fox Sports, and CBS—to generate even more revenue from shortform video.
After all, sports leagues are putting more and more premium
content on social media platforms: TikTok just became FIFA’s first-ever “preferred platform,” and the Olympics Committee is more open than ever to circulating highlights. That means broadcasters, especially those paying for increasingly expensive sports rights, should try to use these platforms to drive revenue by becoming top-tier partners. On YouTube, for example, premium partners in top advertising tiers drive higher rates than average creators. Some media companies are already adopting this
strategy: The Financial Times recently reported that the BBC may start producing content for YouTube partially in an effort to increase its advertising haul for content in international markets.
NBC’s deal with Nippon is a reminder that old methods for producing sports broadcasts are no longer as effective for a new generation of consumers, who engage in sports through their smaller communities (e.g., Joe Burrow fans who are not necessarily
football aficionados) and in their own curated feeds. So while using a technology that allows NBC to create more vertical videos in far less time may keep people engaged on Peacock, the bigger opportunity is the potential business line outside of the owned-and-operated platforms. |
Thanks, Julia. See you all on Thursday,
John |
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