The Underdogs: The CW Is Emerging as a Sports Destination With College Football Partnered by Raycom Sports and Pac-12 Studios, The CW carries big-time ACC, Pac-12 football By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, September 20, 2024 - 2:41 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The CW. Yes, The CW.
Not very long ago, even the most dialed-in media-industry type would raise a single eyebrow at the concept of The CW, the Nexstar Media Group-owned broadcast network, as a player in the ultra-competitive world of live sports coverage.
In Week 3 of the college football season, The CW broadcast a marquee matchup between No. 5 Ole Miss and Wake Forest. The game was produced by Raycom Sports.
In little more than a year and a half, The CW has built itself quite the sports portfolio. Following its surprising acquisition of the television rights of LIV Golf in January 2023, the broadcaster has leveraged that momentum to add other enticing sports properties, including events in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and WWE's NXT, along with prized studio programming like Inside the NFL.
However, thanks to deals with the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Pac-12 Conference in football and men's and women's basketball, The CW has moved into a new sports-media bracket. This fall, the network is slated to broadcast 13 ACC and 11 Pac-12 football games (the latter featuring the conference's two remaining members, Oregon State and Washington State). Already this season, The CW has had some juicy matchups, such as when Top 5 Ole Miss visited the ACC's Wake Forest.
Football is the one sport in America's segmented media world where the viewers will find you. Be the place to be on a college-football Saturday, and you're quickly a destination. And, in a season of change in college football (conference realignment, the expanded playoff, NIL), the emergence of The CW as a destination of top-tier college football games may be one of the more interesting from a media perspective. It just may be the kindling that makes The CW's flame too bright to ignore.
Being involved in college football, the second-most-popular sport in our country, is just so valuable, says Jason Wormser, SVP, CW Sports, a longtime sports-media executive who has won seven national Sports Emmy Awards during his career with ESPN, NFL Network, and FOX Sports. There's a halo effect that comes off it and helps us introduce viewers to everything that we do.
What The CW does, in addition to its entertainment lineup, is produce more than 500 hours a year of live sports programming. That number appears destined to grow over the next few years - even beginning tonight: the start of a wall-to-wall sports weekend for The CW. The NASCAR Xfinity Series airs Friday evening, along with a Friday-night college football game between San Jose State and Washington State. All Saturday afternoon, the network will broadcast LIV Golf's final tournament of the year from Dallas before switching to a college-football doubleheader of TCU at SMU and Purdue at Oregon State. Sunday afternoon caps off the LIV tournament in Dallas.
This is the story not of a sports channel on the rise but of one that is already here.
What we are, if you think about it, is the underdog, notes Wormser. On NXT, all those folks want to be in WrestleMania. In college sports, they want to go to the next step, and they want to be professionals, whether it's the NFL, the NBA, or the WNBA. In LIV Golf, they're kind of the renegades. NASCAR Xfinity Series. You see, they're all the underdog, and we're the underdog, and we're working together. It all kind of fits. We're really excited. It's a thrilling time to be involved in something brand new. We can shape it the way we want to shape it.
Growth of a Sports Brand The story of The CW begins with its launch in 2008 as a broadcast- television replacement for the shuttered WB and UPN networks. When it was acquired by Nexstar in winter 2022, a noted shift in focus to live linear programming set the company on the course to stake its flag in live sports programming.
In January 2023, heads turned when The CW announced formation of CW Sports following its acquisition of the LIV Golf, thus winning a rights agreement intensely followed in the industry as the controversial brand searched for a television home. At around the same time, Wormser came on board as a consultant to help steer the network's newly ignited sports efforts. He brought with him decades of experience in production, perhaps most notably in soccer: he was coordinating producer on ESPN's coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup before playing a key role in FOX Sports' emergence in soccer with the UEFA Champions League, the Premier League, MLS, and more.
This season, The CW debuted its own graphics package and theme music for its live college-football broadcasts.
Since then, the operation has quickly but strategically grown - not just in programming but in staffing as well: CW Sports Executive Director Jonathan Biles joined from FOX Sports this past summer. The most critical step, however, was to find a production partner, and, following a rights deal with the ACC in summer 2023, The CW found one in an iconic brand in sports television: Raycom Sports.
Known for its legacy of college-sports production, Raycom Sports was a natural fit with its live-sports-production pedigree and in-house fleet of production trucks. With only five weeks to prepare for its first foray into college football, The CW quickly put together what it could. On games last season, The CW still used ESPN graphics and branding, looking to keep the look and feel familiar for viewers while working through its own brand look on the backend.
It was really important that we got off on the right foot with the [ACC] and got [off] on the
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
09/10/2026
September 10 2026, 06:00 (PDT) Dolby Expands Dolby OptiView Platform with New Capabilities at IBC 2026
New Sports Intelligence helps providers better unders...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
29/09/2026
Oak View Group (OVG) has announced Cisco as an Official Technology Partner, with plans to standardize infrastructure across its venue network on Cisco solutions...
29/09/2026
SportsNet Pittsburgh (SNP) won three honors at the 2026 Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
Program awards went to Bucs BP in the Sports Program Live category (produced ...
29/09/2026
The Professional Women's Hockey League has announced home openers for all 12 teams for the 2026-27 season, along with a broadcast partnership with CBC under...
29/09/2026
Manifold technologies has been recognized as a contributor to the Media eXchange...
29/09/2026
FuboTV has announced My Local Sports, allowing subscribers in select markets to add their local regional sports network (RSN) as an add-on to a Fubo Sports subs...
29/09/2026
Asian News International (ANI), a wire agency and video news provider based in India, has deployed Grass Valley's AMPP Media Operating System and Framelight...
29/09/2026
South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has deployed Ikegami UHK-X600 cameras as part of an upgrade to IP-based production infrastructure. The deployment ...
29/09/2026
REMI, REMCO models will drive the bulk of the broadcaster's NHL productions ...
29/09/2026
Three years in, the facility is supporting more centralized race production, com...
29/09/2026
NBC, Peacock, and NBSN are carrying all four Wild Card series with a production ...
29/09/2026
19 Nonfiction Projects Across All Stages of Production to Receive More Than $1 million in Support as Documentary Film Program Approaches 25th Anniversary
LOS ...
29/09/2026
Two new plug-ins launch alongside updated bundles
Zynaptiq have just announced the launch of two new plug-ins, alongside new and improved versions of two of...
29/09/2026
All-in-one bus processor revealed
Wes Audio's ng product range has come a long way since it was first introduced, and now includes a tasty selection of ...
29/09/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Ikegami announces that the South African Broadcasting Corporation, SABC, has chosen Ikegami UHK-X600 camera systems as part of an advance to IP-based operation ...
29/09/2026
Blendkit Offers 20% Discount to Celebrate Crossing 150K Asset Milestone
Brie Clayton September 29, 2026
0 Comments
Blendkit, the largest 3D asset libr...
29/09/2026
Interactive streaming specialist Ease Live supported more than 76.5 million fan sessions across three major European media operators during this summers FIFA Wo...
29/09/2026
Ease Live has added support for VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) to its graphical overlay technology, opening up new ways for broadcasters, streamers and rights...
29/09/2026
Rise AV has announced the launch of the inaugural Rise AV Awards, a new global awards programme celebrating the women, advocates and organisations across the AV...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/09/2026
Clear-Com announced that First Baptist Nashville has upgraded its production communications with a Clear-Com intercom solution as part of a comprehensive sanct...
29/09/2026
Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K Captured Action Shots for Sketch
Brie Clayton September 28, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's portable design and dynamic range...
29/09/2026
Kean Production Services Deploys AJA ColorBox to Deliver Consistent, Accurate Co...
29/09/2026
Berklee Alumni and Faculty Nominated for the 2026 Latin Grammy Awards A total of 28 Berklee alumni and faculty earned nominations across 20 categories this ye...
29/09/2026
Berklee's K-Pop & Beyond Explores Connections Between K-Pop and Hip-Hop Now in its fifth year, the series brings together artists, industry leaders, and s...
29/09/2026
We tend to think we live in a digital world, with hopes and fears around artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, data centres and the next big technolo...
29/09/2026
Today, in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Apple relea...
29/09/2026
Final Cut Camera, the professional filming app for iPhone, receives a major upda...
29/09/2026
RT lyric fm is proud to announce the annual Choirs for Christmas competition callout. Warm up those vocal chords and join us on RT lyric fm for a celebration ...
28/09/2026
The NHL has announced Adobe as an Official Creative, Marketing and AI Partner beginning with the 2026-27 season. The partnership will provide the league and its...
28/09/2026
MultiDyne will exhibit at CABSAT 2026 (October 5-7, Dubai Exhibition Centre), showcasing an expanded technology portfolio following its June 2026 acquisition of...
28/09/2026
ARRI and HONOR have announced the HONOR Magic9 Pro Max, a flagship smartphone carrying ARRI branding on the device and packaging as the first product-level expr...
28/09/2026
Net Insight has added the Nimbra 1020G to its pan-Asian live media trial network, giving customers and partners in the region a way to evaluate ST 2110 and JPEG...
28/09/2026
Vindral has been named a recipient of a 2026 Technology and Engineering Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the category of We...
28/09/2026
Interra Systems will exhibit at CABSAT 2026 (Stand B2-37, Dubai Exhibition Centre, October 5-7), demonstrating its BATON QC platform, ORION monitoring solutions...
28/09/2026
Two years into its new production facility, the TOUR is expanding centralized wo...
The Underdogs: The CW Is Emerging as a Sports Destination With College Football Partnered by Raycom Sports and Pac-12 Studios, The CW carries big-time ACC, Pac-12 football By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
