CNBC throws its weight behind the early CNBC sports brands, bringing significant sports business coverage to CNBC TV and live events.
The company is launching CNBC Sports, the CNBC Sports Weekend Show. It features interviews with sports business executives and news makers, and plans a series of long-term productions of CNBC sports brands that explore the intersection of sports and business alongside NBA superstar Steph Curry’s off-court endeavor.
“In an age where everything is time shifts or delays, sports is one of one appointment type viewing, and one of the live market viewing. So you have to be engaged,” says Max Meyers, VP & Senior Executive Producer of Steriance Berticals & Audiess Development in an interview. “And that adds to the value of these franchises, and they also have a natural rarity.
“It has brought a torrent of money from around the world whether it comes from a sovereign wealth fund, from private equity funds, from other types of Wall Street types, or traditional investors in this space,” he adds. “And as a result, a lot of money is coming and going. CNBC tells a more money story than any network or news outlet in any form, so it makes sense that we did it.”
According to CNBC Sports Reporter Alex Sherman, the idea came from CNBC president KC Sullivan.
“Add to that, the people who own these teams are already on CNBC, so we’re talking to them, whatever the market, or what their main business is. “We’ve been shoehorning it to some extent in the past, so his idea was like this is already here. There should be a platform for where we really dive into.
In addition to the CNBC Sports Newsletter, CNBC has increased the amount of coverage in the sports business by seven times since its launch, says the Business Outlet. It will also be pushed into the weekly sports business podcast and will be the basis for the weekend show starting March 29th. Interviews filmed for video podcasts are reused in weekly series.
“It’s very efficient and modern, given the amount of writers coming out of that media, but it doesn’t look like cable news,” Myers says.
As for long format video documentation, Sherman has put them together as an extension of what he’s been doing before, and YouTube and ESPN are already some of the focus of those efforts.
“The process we’re trying to do at Steph Curry is very similar,” Sherman said.
“The original conceit of it was that we were trying to chase him to Chase Centre for a three-point contest,” he added. “But then, at the last minute, he got out of the three-point contest with (WNBA star) Sabrina Ionescu and ended that plan. But we were on the boat.”
The first branded live event, CNBC Sport: Inside the Business the Business of Women’s Basketball, will be set for April 5th and sponsored by JPMorganchase.
“On the market side, there’s a real desire to be a partner and to be related to this content and the way I live in this brand and this sector. That’s the goal,” says Myers. “I think the most interesting thing for me is the engagement we found in the content. You can see the email addresses of people signing up for these. It’s a commissioner, an agent, a sports banker.”
