By Matthew Futterman
In an effort to compete with ESPN and HBO, Comcast Corp.'s
NBCUniversal is launching a sports documentary film division.
The unit, which will be part of NBC Sports Group, will have a
strong Olympics bent and use staff from the Emmy-award winning
Olympics division. NBCUniversal has committed almost $8 billion to
the International Olympic Committee for the U.S. media rights to
the Olympic Games through 2032.
The new division will also produce documentaries about other
sports, capitalizing on partnerships NBCUniversal has with
organizations such as the National Hockey League, Nascar and Notre
Dame football.
Its first film project, a profile of former NHL star and
recovering drug addict Derek Sanderson, will air June 8, following
Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals.
NBC Sports plans to use in-house talent to produce the
documentaries. That approach is different from both Walt Disney
Co.'s ESPN and Time Warner Inc.'s HBO, which now usually contract
with established filmmakers on their projects. HBO Sports, which
produced more than 75 documentaries beginning in the 1990s, closed
its in-house documentary production unit after 2011. ESPN, which
has achieved notoriety for its "30 for 30" series, has worked with
such noted filmmakers as Spike Lee, John Singleton and Errol Morris
in producing more than 150 documentaries of varying length.
Mark Levy, senior vice president for original productions at the
NBC Sports Group, said he plans to produce four films a year that
will be shown on the cable channel NBC Sports Network and may also
appear on Comcast's 11 regional sports networks.
While the films will provide relatively inexpensive programming,
the move is unlikely to produce direct revenue for the NBC Sports
Group in the near future. In the past, HBO and ESPN were able to
sell DVDs of their documentaries, though that business has largely
dried up.
"As time moves on, our digital, social media and business
development people will look at opportunities to share this
content," Mr. Levy said.
ESPN receives payments from Netflix for its films, though the
content is largely intended to build value for the network, which
costs cable operators about $6 a month per subscriber, according to
media research firm SNL Kagan. NBC Sports Network receives a
fraction of that, or about 31 cents a month for each subscriber
from cable operators, though it is often sold as part of a suite of
Comcast-owned networks.
Write to Matthew Futterman at matthew.futterman@wsj.com
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