NBC and Comcast must have some big plans for Versus

UPDATE #2 For more on this topic see today's article by Mark Cipolloni on our Home page.

04/19/11 NBC's Dick Ebersol said the Versus name will be changed within 90 days to better reflect its association with NBC. The most attractive part of the deal from the NBC side is the exclusive nature it provides for IndyCar.

04/19/11 NBC and Versus have signed a 10-year, $2B deal to renew the NHL's TV rights. Fox took a preliminary look at the package but never made a bid, and Turner pulled out of the bidding last week, saying it could not find a business model to support the money NBC and Versus are paying the NHL.

So why would they pay the NHL $200 million per year (up significantly from $75 million per year) even though the NHL TV ratings on Versus are almost all below 1.0, and most below 0.5?

There are rumors that Versus will become the NBC Sports Channel, and if that happens maybe NBC will be able to convince cable and satellite providers that the NBC Sports Channel should be in as many homes as ESPN.

This of course would be good for IndyCar. Locked into a 10-year deal on Versus, IndyCar cannot grow with ratings below 1.0. AutoRacing1.com recommends that IndyCar take the Indy 500 to NBC (The 500 contract with ABC is up after 2012) and do a deal to put all IndyCar races on NBC network TV. That is the only real way to grow the series. ESPN-like ratings on a cable channel called NBC Sports channel (or whatever they call it) will make it difficult to get anything much above 1.0 ratings. The NBC Sports Channel can be used for qualifying shows, and race re-runs, and other ancillary programming.