Sports Production, Delivery is Big Biz at NAB

Sports Production, Delivery is Big Biz at NAB

Andy Marken April 29, 2026

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Hero image source: NAB

One of the neat things about trade shows is you get to forget about politics and pretty much everything that is happening in the real world, and focus on new products, new technologies, renewed acquaintances and determine for yourself what's hot/what's not. We'll be covering NAB with two reports because

This year's event was really overshadowed by sports - who's going to pay for it, who's going to do what to whom, who was going to be cut out, who's going to pay for it, and on the show floor side, how good can it be.

Sure, the show floor sessions were thick with AI, and it hit us even before we got to the convention center.

AI made us think differently about everything like when we stopped in a coffee shop - Dunkin - in the Las Vegas shopping mall.

Source - Andy Marken

We know their promo tie line is The World Runs on Dunkin but they've been replaced.

Nope!

The world runs on NVIDIA - or at least Jensen Huang wants you to think that and it all runs on the company's increasingly powerful (and expensive) GPUs.

But, leading up to the show it was more than obvious that sports were on the table, and everyone was drawing a line, taking a stand or trying to figure out WTF.

Sports - futball (globally), football (US), baseball, basketball, rugby, hockey, rugby, cricket, cycling, boxing, wrestling, table tennis, gymnastics, swimming, golf, tennis, you name it - is a multi-billion-dollar global industry.

It garners massive streaming/TV contracts because events attract major audiences (ratings) and big ad dollars that every streamer, network and local station wants a piece of.

And a sports event (any sport) can be sliced and diced a thousand different ways to make money for the league, owners, distribution folks and ultimately, the participants and the betting community.

Source - GiveMeSport

In a few months, assuming government idiots stay out of the way, millions of people will fly to cities in Mexico, Canada and the US to cheer their team to victory.

It will be a period when athletes put their differences aside and focus on the game maybe/hopefully much smaller minds can do the same.

In addition, millions more people will be skipping work/class, depriving themselves of sleep and cheering/ crying as they watch the action on big screens and smartphones.

It used to be simple networks signed up for exclusive rights to show the play by play in their country.

Source - EMarketer

Viewing Patchwork - Knowing exactly where to find your favorite sport, team and game has become increasingly difficult because associations, leagues and teams have more distribution options.

But then streamers got into the act and were willing to pay bigger bucks (really bigger) for various exclusive rights and TV networks, local stations were removed from the equation.

Suddenly, we were talking about a real business deal.

Source - Business Research Company

Events like the annual US football super bowl attracted 127.7M sets of eyeballs and advertisers were willing to pay a helluva lot for a 30-sec spot.

This year, Disney is already offering their 30s on ESPN for an eye-watering $10M compared to a lowly $7M last year (yeah, they're getting pushback) but

And the league - all sports leagues - want more for their events and it's getting difficult for linear networks/local stations to write the checks.

Linear TV still delivers key moments but increasingly, it's the digital environment that league and team owners lean on because the money's good and they're able to more easily tap into a global audience.

And global greed raises the bar for everyone.

Source - MediaPost

While streamers are members of NAB, the association was very vocal prior to the convention in telling (asking) the FCC to limit sports franchises from signing exclusive distribution agreements with the leading bidders (streamers) that give the big four in the US (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) and local stations equal coverage opportunities for their audiences.

Citing the poor consumers' plight, the NAB noted that last year's games were only available on 10 different paywalled platforms.

To follow the teams, subscriptions would have been about $1,500 because they - Google, Amazon, Netflix, Apple and other techies have nearly limitless budgets that consistently cut the Big 4 and local stations out of the picture.

Source - Cave Anne

Mobile View - Streaming has enabled people to constantly follow the action from everywhere and view it in real time.

Association folks forgot to add that online sports have enabled folks to watch their favorite team/game/event anywhere, using any device and that's why streaming sports is even more desirable to enthusiasts.

NAB asked the government to ensure networks and local broadcasters guarantee distribution availability and preserve sports on broadcast TV so they could use the event profits to fund local news (yeah, it's complicated).

Source - LinkedIn

Control - Rights holders and streamers will share the responsibility of giving fans the games, events, activities they want this year and in the years ahead.

Perhaps what they're saying is they want to limit what the global sports organizations and franchises can do.

In all of these discussions, there is little mention of the fact that the consumer prefers on-demand and live content, which is stimulating more interest, more sports value.

Source - Altman Solon

Sweet Spot - The mid age groups are willing to pay to view their games in real time and take advantage of other sports related activities.

While NAB in their submissions didn't give any indication as to what consumers would want, the CTA (Consumer Technology Association) countered that streaming gives co

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