| Universal Sports | |
|---|---|
| Launched | 2006 (as World Championship Sports Network) June 16, 2008 (as Universal Sports) |
| Network | Universal Sports |
| Owned by | NBCUniversal and InterMedia Partners |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) (2012) |
| Slogan | The Athletes' Network |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Broadcast area | Nationwide |
| Headquarters | Westlake Village Studios 2 Dole Drive, Westlake Village, CA 91362 |
| Formerly called | World Championship Sports Network (WCSN) |
| Sister channel(s) | NBC Sports NBC Sports Network |
| Website | http://www.universalsports.com/ |
| Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| DirecTV (US) | Channel 625 |
Universal Sports is an American television network that airs various sports, primarily those contested in the Olympic Games, including swimming, gymnastics, cycling, track and field, figure skating, skiing, bobsledding and triathlon.
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Universal Sports Network televises more than 1,200 hours of premiere programming each year.[1] It covers over 30 sports, including World Championships, World Cups and Grand Prix Events.[1] The range of these events include:[1]
The channel has long-term broadcasting agreements[1] with the:
The channel features American Olympic stars including Apolo Ohno, Nastia Liukin, Michael Phelps and Lindsey Vonn.
It carried the 2008 Summer Paralympics from Beijing, China, from October 8 to November 19, 2008. On September 9, 2008, it also began the "Olympic Replay", rebroadcasting selected competitions from the 2008 Summer Olympics, also from Beijing. The channel played a large role in NBC Universal's coverage of the 2010 Winter Paralympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The channel provides year-round coverage of events that generally receive attention every few years. Through the television and internet streaming, a fan can see how Olympic athletes compete between the games. It promotes itself as "the athlete's network",[1] and extends its coverage through blogs and interviews outside of competition.
On 17 June 2010 Universal Sports along with the IRB announced that the channel would bring "unprecedented national television and digital media coverage of the 2011 and 2015 Rugby World Cup tournaments.".[2] This statement was issued jointly by Universal Sports CEO David Sternberg and the Secretary General of the IRB Mike Miller.[3]
As reported by Olympic news outlet Around the Rings, Universal Sports and Infront Sports and Media announced an exclusive media rights agreement for the International Ski Federation World Cup events in 2011-2012.
Besides the sports coverage, the channel broadcast the three hours of FCC-required educational and informational programming weekly during its run on broadcast television; this is expected to end when it goes cable-only.
The channel, originally called World Championship Sports Network (WCSN), was co-founded in 2006 by Claude Ruibal, its chairman and chief executive officer, and Tom Hipkins, a member of the channel's board of directors, with the help of Carlos Silva, its president and chief operating officer,[1] One of its first events was coverage of the United States Track and Field Championships via streaming video.
On June 16, 2008, NBC Universal joined with InterMedia Partners in a partnership, and the channel was renamed Universal Sports, and branded with the NBC peacock logo.[4]
On several stations, the rebranded channel took over the digital subchannel formerly used by NBC Weather Plus, which was discontinued December 31, 2008, not long after NBC Universal purchased The Weather Channel.
Universal Sports will begin broadcasting in high definition in 2012 when it begins to be exclusively distributed to cable and satellite providers.[5]
Until January 2, 2012, Universal Sports was distributed by:
On September 12, 2011, it was announced that Universal Sports would convert to being exclusively distributed to cable and satellite providers in an effort to make the channel more of an official national sports network as a division NBC Sports, and would no longer operate as an over-the-air digital multicast network beginning in January.[7] This announcement occurred not long after NBC Universal was bought by Comcast causing Versus to fall under the NBC Sports umbrella, becoming NBC Sports Network in January 2012. On the month before the announcement happened, in August 2011, DirecTV became the first provider to carry Universal Sports as a basic network. These over-the-air multicast digital affiliates switched to other programming prior to or upon Universal Sports' transition to other services such as Antenna TV and Me-TV or discontinued the sub-channel altogether.
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