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Programming Everywhere: Resetting the Economics on Sports Rights

Local broadcasters and professional sports teams and leagues have been racking up wins thanks to partnerships that have ushered in a new age for sports rights. 

Brian Lawlor, president of Scripps Sports, has been among the broadcast vanguard in securing those rights in the wake of some regional sports networks’ collapse. Those partnerships have included three NHL franchises — the Las Vegas Golden Knights, Florida Panthers and the Utah Hockey Club — in addition to women’s leagues WBNA (with exclusive Friday night double-headers) and NWSL and the NCAA’s Big Sky Conference, which runs through a dozen Western U.S. markets. 

Scripps Sports uses the E.W. Scripps-owned Ion as its broadcast home for the games, and Lawlor says both the broadcaster and its sports partners have seen big upticks in engagement. 

“The ratings are outperforming what ran before,” Lawlor says. “In our first year with the Vegas Golden Knights, they more than doubled their audience. In Florida, we’ve now tripled the prior audience when both were on regional sports networks. It’s been a significant lift and a lot more visibility for the teams and their fans.”

Crucially for the broadcaster, Lawlor says the deals are already turning a profit. Different from the regional sports network model, which is built with a foundation on distribution revenue, Lawlor says Scripps’ models are built on advertising and sponsor support. 

“We’ve reset the economics on what sports rights look like and the value of reach versus a rights fee,” he says. “We have built these to be profitable business models.”

The deals have allowed Scripps to tap into the local interest and community passion that is a hallmark of its broadcast brands, Lawlor says. The ultimate winners have been viewers, who now have unprecedented free access to teams they already love or are just discovering. 

“It really allows people to have the visibility to be able to find games, to watch games and to build a loyalty and fandom for teams,” he says. “People are watching television as families together and live.”

Lawlor will share more insights about Scripps Sports’ deals and their impact in (Re) Building a Sports Business on Local Broadcast, a panel at TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference. He will appear with Pat LaPlatney, president and co-CEO, Gray Television and Scott Shapiro, EVP corporate development, Sinclair, who have built a number of their own impactful sports deals in the new marketplace. 

Set for Sunday, April 6, at the Encore Las Vegas on the opening day of NAB Show, Programming Everywhere is home to the year’s most important conversation about the new business of video content.

Speakers focus on new development; reinventing production, distribution and monetization models; programming for a multimedia audience; and the role of technology in facilitating a vibrant programming ecosystem. Programming Everywhere is the only conference to convene leaders from across the media and entertainment world to share their unique strategies to evolve and thrive amid tectonic industry changes.