NEW YORK (CNN/Money) -
The Kentucky Derby this weekend will be a unique event for many viewers -- the only horse race many of them will watch this year, and the only time many of them will watch anything on NBC Sports.
The network, which not long ago brought us the championships for the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball, today has become a conscientious objector in the sports rights fee wars among the major networks.
 |
|
| Empire Maker was the favorite but did not win Saturday's Kentucky Derby. |
These major sports leagues are gone to other networks. And in every odd-numbered year the stable of premier sporting events on NBC is as thin as a peacock's tail feather -- a portion of the Nascar season, Wimbledon, the U.S. Open golf tournament, Notre Dame football, the Triple Crown horse races. Other than Nascar, none is considered a ratings powerhouse, despite the prestige of the events. And Nascar is NBC Sports' one big money loser.
Filling out the rest of the network's sports line-up are very much second-tier or third-tier events with basically no rights fees -- arena football, swimming, bull riding, and even curling (NBC Sports: Nothing But Curling?).
The loss of top tier sports events is hurting NBC's remaining premier sporting events. Last year it paired NBA playoffs with its Derby coverage. This year it brings boxing back to the network with a featherweight fight as the race's lead-in. Horse racing and boxing were once major sports in this country, but that was when radio was still the nation's main electronic medium.
| SportsBiz
|
|
| Click here for SI.com sports coverage
|
|
|
|
Still, NBC's fiscal discipline is a good thing for shareholders of parent General Electric Co. (GE: Research, Estimates). Fox last year took a charge for more than $900 million in estimated losses on sports rights deals. NBC instead took a pass.
"Our interest in being involved in football, baseball and basketball is undiminished," NBC Sports President Ken Schanzer told me this week. "We're just not prepared to be in it at the price they're charging. If the price changes and everyone comes to their senses, we'll be a bidder. But we don't think it's worth losing hundreds of millions. If the folly continues, I think it's unlikely we'll be back in it."
Every even year the network has the ratings powerhouse Olympic coverage. That contract is the only truly profitable sporting event with a big rights fee. GE said last year's Salt Lake City Olympics added about a $15 million profit to last year's results. NBC paid $555 million in rights fees for the games, but took in revenue of about $700 million.
 |
|
| NBC Sports President Ken Schanzer. |
NBC is fortunate to have the rights to the next three games, through the 2008 contest in China, even if rights to these three games will cost it a total of $2.3 billion. But the International Olympic Committee is negotiating now for the rights to the 2010 and 2012 games, and it's tough to see NBC hanging onto the rights, given the network's fiscal discipline, and the lack of profit discipline by its competitors.
The Olympian heights of the games' rights fees are a long way from Churchill Downs' twin spires, though. This year is the third in a five-year rights deal for the Triple Crown, which is costing NBC only $50.5 million, or $10.1 million a year, according to Sports Business Daily, which tracks the rights deals.
"The Derby is an event we've coveted as long as I've been here," Schanzer said about the races that were on ABC for 26 years until moving to NBC two years ago.
But given the relatively modest ratings horse racing gets -- the Derby hasn't broken a 10-rating since 1990 -- it isn't likely spark a bidding war next time out.
| Related stories
|
|
|
|
|
|
The only time horse racing is on the average sports fan's radar is on the first Saturday in May, when the Derby is run. Maybe also the day of the Belmont, in the years when a horse has a chance to win the Triple Crown, as War Emblem had last year.
No horse has won the Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978. This year's Derby favorite, Empire Maker, did not end the drought. But even if upset winner Funny Cide manages to take the triple crown, that won't be enough to move the sport back to top-tier status.
More people are likely to see this summer's movie about the 1930's racehorse Seabiscuit than to watch any of this spring's races. And NBC Sports (NoBody Cares Sports?) will continue to be the bargain basement of sports broadcasts. The only sports fans this will please will be the ones with GE stock.
|
