CNBC Sport: Versant CEO Mark Lazarus outlines his sports strategy

CNBC

08-05-2025

Comcast's spinoff of most of NBCUniversal's cable portfolio has a new name – Versant. This week, I had a chance to speak to the new company's Chief Executive Officer, Mark Lazarus. "Laz," as he's known colloquially, replaced Dick Ebersol as chairman of NBC Sports in 2011. Before that, he was president of Turner Sports. More recently, he's been chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, overseeing the company's TV and streaming platforms.
Now Laz will have a chance at running a publicly traded company that consists of cable networks including USA, CNBC, Golf Channel and MSNBC, among others. The company plans to begin trading separately from Comcast before the end of the year.
Versant will have its own sports strategy, including bidding on live sports to add to its current portfolio. Lazarus told me in an exclusive interview he's already held talks with both the National Women's Soccer League and Major League Baseball about potentially acquiring live game rights. The NWSL has a package of games it's currently shopping and could add a fifth media partner to its existing roster of CBS, ESPN, Amazon Prime Video and Scripps Sports (ION).
For baseball, it's unlikely Versant has the financial firepower to compete for the Sunday Night package recently vacated for next season by ESPN, but MLB controls the rights to many games through its out-of-market streaming service, MLB.TV, and its pay-TV add-on service Extra Innings. MLB hived off some of these games to Roku for $10 million per year last year. MLB also has national deals with Apple TV+, Turner Sports and Fox. Local deals are primarily spread out among regional sports networks, although Amazon owns the exclusive rights to some New York Yankees games.
"We're looking for sports deals that drive distribution, diversify ad sales and have a value," said Lazarus.
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Getting a small package of games for USA Network could help boost Versant's future distribution conversations with pay-TV providers. For MLB, carving out a chunk of games for USA Network can help improve the league's reach. Lazarus said he'll examine all sorts of live rights as they come available, provided they can boost distribution revenue as pay-TV carriage renewals arise.
"We have a pretty good sports portfolio," Lazarus said. "We're not going to be in the NFL business. We're not going to be in the Big Ten business, because that stuff's all spoken for. But we'll be with the next-level stuff."
USA already airs English Premier League games in the U.S. in addition to NASCAR, certain golf events (including two majors – the U.S. Open and the British Open) and WWE's "Smackdown."
USA will also get WNBA games as part of NBCUniversal's new deal with the NBA, beginning next season. Lazarus shared with me that the WNBA commitment is actually greater than the initial agreement with the league. USA Network will have Wednesday night doubleheaders beginning next season.
The Olympics will continue to air on all of the cable networks that have long been part of NBCUniversal's broader deal – including CNBC (hello curling!). Golf Channel already airs many live tournaments, including The Ryder Cup, and "golf will be an important vertical for us, and we'll continue to invest in the golf industry," Lazarus said.
Sixty-five percent of Versant's programming is live, either through news or sports, Lazarus told me. Versant will be cut loose from NBCUniversal and will have to showcase the value of its content on its own, no longer able to link itself to NBC's broadcast network, which owns the rights to the NBA, the NFL's "Sunday Night Football" and many other leagues.
But that won't happen overnight: Versant will have about a two-year grace period, as nearly every major TV distribution deal is locked down until 2027, with the bulk coming up for renewal in 2028.
With annual revenue of roughly $7 billion, Versant won't be able to compete for the top sports rights against behemoths like Disney, Netflix and Amazon. But the company's sports strategy is very important to the future of the company, given its importance with distributors. Lazarus recently announced three significant sports executive hires: Matt Hong as President of Sports, Jeff Behnke as Executive Producer and Senior Vice President of Sports Production, and Roy Cho as President of Distribution and Partnerships.
One sport Lazarus said he won't be bidding on is F1. Those rights are currently in market, but Lazarus told me he doesn't think the racing league will move the needle on distribution deals, noting ratings are about one-third of NASCAR's.
One more detail Lazarus shared with me is post spinoff, Versant will have a negotiated promotional deal with NBCUniversal where programming is marketed between the two companies' networks and digital properties. There will be no money exchanged in the deal, but the marketing value will be equal. This goes beyond sports, but given there are far more eyeballs on NBC than on the cable networks, this works to Versant's advantage.
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