Inside The CW’s sports revamp—and what it means for advertisers

Teen heartthrob dramas à la “Riverdale” and “Gossip Girl” are no more for The CW. Instead, the network is building a sports lineup with developmental properties as interest in sports beyond the top U.S. leagues grows and advertisers concentrate their linear TV spending on live events. The CW has brought in about 30 new local and national advertisers across its fall sports lineup featuring ACC and Pac-12 college football and NASCAR’s Xfinity Series. “If you look at all the brands we have, they’re all up-and-coming brands: college football to the NFL, college basketball to the NBA, WWE NXT up to Wrestlemania, the Nascar Xfinity series to the Cup series. We’re the home for up-and-comers and trying to do things differently,” said Todd Braverman, executive VP, head of national sales for Nexstar Media, the majority owner of The CW. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs With entertainment viewing in linear TV declining rapidly, broadcast networks have been focusing on sports and live content as their main selling points to advertisers. Last year, ad pricing for nearly all fall primetime inventory declined across the board, with the exceptions being sports broadcasts, according to Ad Age’s TV Pricing Chart. The CW doesn’t intend to have Super Bowl-level ad rates. But its transformation from a pure entertainment network to a more sports-focused one is meant to attract small- and mid-budget advertisers that can’t access NFL inventory on CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox. Major advertisers have also taken notice. For The CW’s second season hosting ACC football, Verizon returns as the presenting sponsor, while Subaru is back as the halftime sponsor. State Farm is the presenting sponsor for The CW’s first Pac-12 college football season. Across its college football properties, 62 advertisers have partnered with The CW, 29 of which are new to the network. The CW has also added exclusive coverage of the NASCAR Xfinity Series, which starts this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, the first of eight playoff races. NASCAR drew 25 new advertisers to the network, some of which also invested in The CW’s college football inventory. The CW has been shifting its programming strategy since local broadcast giant Nexstar Media Group acquired a majority share of the network in 2022. As young viewers swap linear TV for streaming, Nexstar has aimed to revamp the teen network for a broader audience, and sports has led the charge. The CW’s sports efforts began with LIV Golf, the three-year-old golf league surrounded by controversy due to its Saudi funding. Dennis Miller, president of The CW, said early successes with LIV Golf (recent ratings have tumbled) opened the door to striking deals with the ACC and then the NFL to take over its weekly studio show, “Inside the NFL.” Now, Miller said, The CW is spending over $1 billion on sports licenses and airs 500 hours of sports—none of which existed when Nexstar took over. This year’s upfront represented the first time Nexstar was able to pitch advertisers with its complete portfolio and data on its CW revamp, said Braverman, adding that this year’s upfront saw 30 new advertisers strike deals with CW Sports and 19 new advertisers for The CW’s primetime content. “The CW sold two hours of primetime seven days a week—that was it—and now we’re selling a whole portfolio,” said Braverman. In the current TV investment landscape, size matters. When evaluating upfront commitments, the scale and breadth of a media partner’s portfolio, and the ability to stretch an ad buy across numerous channels, content and platforms, was a major driver for setting priorities, according to media buyers. Also read: Women’s sports rides momentum during upfronts Similarly, Braverman noted that Nexstar’s efforts to provide advertisers with opportunities in The CW Sports, including tie-ins with sister network NewsNation, The CW’s primetime programming and Nexstar’s 200 local stations, have resulted in broader commitments from brands of all sizes. Braverman pointed to a local manufacturer in Kansas City that hadn’t advertised on TV previously but partnered with Nexstar to build creative and air advertising in local NASCAR broadcasts. Braverman also mentioned State Farm, which expanded its sponsorship from CW Sport’s coverage of women’s college basketball to its Pac-12 football season. The CW is sublicensing the final eight races of the NASCAR Xfinity series from NBC before taking it over in 2025. As rights for the major sports get increasingly divided between multiple networks and streamers, a consistent broadcast home will be welcomed by fans and participants, said Braverman. “If you look at the NASCAR [Cup] deal, they have five different publishers. It’s going to be on Amazon, it’s going to be on Warner, it’s going be on NBC, and all of their subsidiaries, Fox and their subsidiaries, but the Xfinity series is going to be on CW every single week, week in and week out,” Braverman said. “So the drivers love it, teams love it and the consumers love it, because they don't have to search around. Is it on cable? Is it on broadcast? Is it on streaming? And I think that’s been huge.” Miller said opportunities for additional sports programming were plentiful, citing growing consumer interest in Olympic sports such as track and field, as well as women’s sports. Competitions that might once have been “relegated to ESPN 19” or air on struggling regional sports networks are also looking to broadcast television, he said. “We’re getting a lot of incoming calls on women’s sports, and a lot on what I would consider to be those sports that moved between cable and broadcast, or were on the second tier of a cable network,” Miller said. “Cable is declining 10% year over year. [Sports teams and leagues] are saying, hey, how do I get to reach all of the people now? So, broadcast has kind of reemerged.”

Inside The CW’s sports revamp—and what it means for advertisers

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