The UAT Filter and NBCSN

It’s pretty difficult to separate yourself in your sports coverage on a day-to-day basis. Sure, you’re all going to cover the same major stories, but you can certainly cover the story from a different angle. In the case of NBCSN, you cover the story with very little bias due to a possible conflict of interest that you have coverage contracts with. NBCSN also it exhibits its uniqueness by not having a daily sports highlight show. The ‘Lights was their daily sports highlight show, but unfortunately it was canceled. This is a shame because it was very simple and very effective. It was 30 minutes of highlights with no editorializing and no filler. NBCSN gets most of its talkability through its football coverage as well as its coverage of the British Premier League. They’re able to do this due to the authenticity in the anchors and talent they have covering these particular subjects. Dan Patrick and Mike Florio have years of coverage in the NFL, and they also have many reputable reporters that they stay in close touch with from Sports Illustrated. This may not seem important to most, but having print media back you up on TV Is very important to older demographics. It’s also important because Sports Illustrated is a salient brand which in turn amps up its authenticity.

Unfortunately what makes NBCSN different from other sports networks is what makes it better to me. NBCSN doesn’t have contracts to all of the major sports in this country. However, what they cover they cover well. They’re not the type of company to constantly retweet their own reporters when news is breaking, and take credit for the news as if they broke it themselves. They do, however, give credit to the reporters that break these stories, even if these reporters work for their main competition. This is a very important detail because it speaks to journalistic integrity. The type of integrity is important to me because I would never want anybody to take credit for my work just because the network the person taking credit for it works for another network that can essentially ”shout” it louder than my own network. The salient aspect of NBCSN comes from its history in sports coverage as well as its inclusion of Sports Illustrated reporters across their platforms.

Ultimately, NBCSN does a good job sticking to its mission of covering International sports as best as it can. Its weakness right now is that it doesn’t have the deep pockets that their competitors have. Another issue that they have is that the events that they bid to cover, they overbid by quite a bit. More fiscal responsibility coupled with the already great talent that they have would allow them to expand the brand to new viewers which would mean more money for the company.