NBC Sports Network to Be Shut Down By End of 2021

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NBC Sports Group informed employees on Friday that NBC Sports Network would be shut down by the end of the year. Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand first broke the story.

The basic-cable channel was in 80 million homes and had been around since 1995 under a few different names. It held the NBCSN name since 2011 and was a home for plenty of live sports, including NHL, Nascar, and Atlantic 10 basketball. According to Sports Media Watch, NBCSN ranked fourth in average viewers per day (108,000) behind ESPN (564,000), Fox Sports 1 (119,000), and NFL Network (113,000).

The channel’s most valued programming will move to USA Network and Peacock, NBC’s new streaming service.

“The clear focus here is for NBCUniversal to grow its Peacock streaming service,” sports media expert Richard Deitsch wrote on The Athletic.