How NBC handled the 2025 Kentucky Derby broadcast: ‘Sovereignty to rule!'

New York Times

04-05-2025

With Sovereignty handling the slop at Churchill Downs to win the 151st Kentucky Derby, we offer seven takeaways on NBC's Derby coverage from the dry comforts of our home.
1. Race caller Larry Collmus, the first person to call the Kentucky Derby for 15 straight years, delivered the goods down the stretch. Here are the words he chose — incredibly precise:
'Journalism and Sovereignty, nose to nose, down to the last 1/16 of a mile. Sovereignty has taken the lead! Journalism is second toward the inside! Baeza is third! It will be SOVEREIGNTY TO RULE THE KENTUCKY DERBY!'
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2. Something I wish NBC did on Saturday was hold the leaderboard graphic for additional seconds, which would have given viewers a better feel for Sovereignty roaring to catch the field. We got a split-second graphic showing Journalism moving into fourth and that was it for the leaderboard.
3. Ahmed Fareed undoubtedly raised his stock with NBC Sports brass on Saturday. Fareed is a regular part of the Derby coverage but had to take over as the main host of the coverage in the 3:00 p.m. ET hour as regular host Mike Tirico sounded sick when he came on the air. Tirico later posted on X that he had 'a significant reaction to my nut allergy. If you have one you know how it can knock you down.' Tirico went back to the hotel during the coverage.
A six-time Derby broadcast veteran, Fareed seamlessly handled the host role and found easy chemistry with analysts Jerry Bailey and Randy Moss. Excellent work.
4. NBC thankfully scaled back on the over-the-top celebrity drop-ins when compared to previous Derby years. But they still included an unwatchable segment with Alix Earle and Braxton Berrios. Find someone who loves you as much as NBCU loves the nexus of celebrity and sports.
5. Donna Brothers has one of the most interesting reporting assignments in sports. For the past 25 years, she has served as the racing reporter on NBC's horse racing coverage. But Brothers, a champion jockey prior to joining NBC, does much of her job on horseback unlike the rest of us. She got great stuff from winning jockey Junior Alvarado following the race. Brothers was a guest on my podcast last week and I asked her where she is located during the Derby and how she approaches the assignment.
'Because of the mile and a quarter start, it would take me too much time if I stood behind the gate and tried to follow the horses,' Brothers said. 'So I stand behind the gates as the horses are loading into the starting gate and I watch in case there's any sort of an incident with any of the horses loading and they might need to come to me for a report. As that last horse goes into the starting gate, I take off for what we'd call the wrong way of the racetrack, the opposite direction that the horses are gonna be running.
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'So I'm on the outside fence galloping along, and I'll get to about the half mile pole or just before the half-mile pole and about that time, the horses have now turned up the backstretch,' she continued. 'I wait with one or two of the outriders for the field to go past me. That's the only time I really get to see the horses and the riders, so I try to take a snapshot at that point and think, do the three or four horses on the lead look like the jockey is sitting on a lot of horse?
'Then I look to see where's the favorite is or a couple of the horses that are gonna be closing, and do they look like they're in a position to close or do they like they look they're too far back and they've already given up. That's all I have really to go on, the field goes by us and then we take off running the wrong way again, and I get into position to interview them. I'm listening to Larry Collmus' call of the race and hope that he doesn't say something at the end, like it's too close to call.'
6. It will be interesting to see if the Derby can follow up on last year's viewership, which was a big increase relative to recent years. Last year's broadcast averaged a total audience of 16.7 million viewers, the largest Kentucky Derby audience since 1989. Viewership peaked at 20.1 million viewers from 7 to 7:15 p.m. ET when Mystik Dan won the photo finish. The streaming audience on Peacock was also huge. Peacock said it had an average minute audience of 714,000 viewers, well up from 2023 (371,000). A viewership snapshot of the last couple of years:
2024: 16.7 million viewers
2023: 14.8 million viewers
2022: 15.8 million viewers
2021: 14.9 million viewers
7. We saw some big cross-promotion on the broadcast as NBC aired a commercial announcing that Roundball Rock will make its long-awaited return to the NBA next season with NBCUniversal with NBC and Peacock airing NBA games starting next fall. They also formally announced Carmelo Anthony as an NBA studio analyst, which The Athletic reported in February.