NBCSN is getting back into the late night sports show game, but not necessarily in the way you’d expect.
The network will premiere NBCSN Sunday Sports Report, airing each week at 11:30 p.m. ET beginning August 17th, coincidentally the first weekend of the Premier League season, and just a few weeks shy of a new NFL season. That’s important, because the show will be centered around the access the network can get as a rights holder, which means they’ll only cover the leagues they broadcast the games, matches and races of.
That means coverage of “the Olympics and Olympic sports, NFL, NASCAR, NHL, Premier League, golf, Triple Crown horse racing, Notre Dame Football, Formula One, IndyCar and more,” according to the network’s press release. For example, Josh Elliott, Cris Collinsworth, Hines Ward and Michelle Tafoya will provide live post-game reports from the site of each week’s Sunday Night Football game. Or you might see commentary from NBC’s NHL, EPL and NASCAR studio shows.
“This new program will be a weekly deep dive into the sports and events that NBC Sports Group presents on a regular basis,” said Sam Flood, Executive Producer, NBC Sports & NBCSN. “Although we will cover must-see moments from other sports, the show’s primary focus is to use our exclusive access and signature voices to go in-depth into the games, matches and races that viewers are accustomed to seeing on NBC and NBCSN.”
The host of the show, and this will shock you since it’s an NBCSN program, is Liam McHugh. Home base for the show will be NBC’s International Broadcast Center in Connecticut. All kidding aside, McHugh hosting something usually means it will at least bring his basic professionalism to the table.
Will the show last? I give it a shot. Not only will it cross-promote with Sunday Night Football, it will essentially have live hockey (and on a night NBCSN draws pretty good NHL ratings at that) as a lead-in from January until June. It will be interesting to see if it can beat out Fox Sports Live on Sunday nights at the very least.
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