New media rights deals: “There’s a recognition that women’s sports can be very compelling TV content”

A new CBS Sports Network deal puts international women’s football in the spotlight—and demonstrates true appetite for broadcast viewership. 

Most striking about this—and other deals being made—is the value of women’s live sports rights and the validation they are receiving. 

“There’s a recognition that women’s sports can be very compelling TV content,” says David Sternberg, a principal at sports media consultancy Claygate Advisors, and a former executive at Universal Sports and FOX Sports, as well as head of media at Manchester United.

Last November the network snatched away the media rights for the Barclays FA Women’s Super League from NBC Sports.

The two-year deal, which begins during the 2022/23 season, sees the network become the exclusive U.S. English-language rights holder of the WSL.

Fifty-seven matches will be shown during both seasons, mainly on the broadcaster’s streaming service, Paramount+, while CBS Sports, the pay television network owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of ViacomCBS, will air a select number of matches.

Indeed, women’s football viewership is heating up with a number of significant media rights deals successively getting signed.

A month following this deal, Ata Football, the streaming service platform under Atalanta Media, signed a two-year agreement to cover Italy’s top-tier women’s Serie A in the US, Canada and Germany.

In June 2021, DAZN, a global over-the-top sports subscription video streaming service, acquired worldwide rights to broadcast the UEFA Women’s Champions League from 2021-2025. As a part of the deal, DAZN entered into a partnership with YouTube offering free live viewership of the competition globally.

Last year was characterized as a watershed moment for women’s soccer in the U.S. in a media rights deal struck between CBS Sports and the National Women’s Soccer League.

For CBS Sports, the WSL tie-up adds to its growing list of women’s football properties. In addition to this and the NWSL deal, the network’s programming includes the UEFA Women's World Cup Qualifying, The Women's Cup, CONCACAF women's World Cup Qualifiers and the women's Nations League, and the AFC Women's Asian Cup.

The WSL deal is purported to be between $750,000 to $1 million a year. The NWSL deal made in 2020 with the network is, according to industry talk, around $1.5 million a year.

Sternberg highlights the “real money” being paid for these content rights.

“Those are two properties that are both at or near the seven figures mark per year,” he emphasizes.

Deserves its place amongst men’s top flight football

There’s a different kind of recognition at play, too.

“The greatest significance of the WSL deal is the acknowledgment by America’s number one broadcast network that women’s top-flight football deserves its place amongst men’s top flight football (and other sports),” says Daniel Cohen, senior vice president, global media rights consulting at Octagon, a global sports media and marketing agency.

Further to that, Cohen highlights that CBS will market, promote, and spend not just human capital but financial capital as well on additional women’s football.

Cohen says the rise of social media has supported the development of “athlete stardom and storylines”. That and societal shifts, as well as enhancements made to targeting marketing tools and ad tech are all contributing factors.

But, integral to the growing viewership of women’s football comes with a thriving streaming market, or, as most pertinent here, “the launch of streaming services that afford unlimited programming windows”, Cohen also says.

Speaking specifically to the WSL, Sternberg points to the “beneficial effect" of the growth and interest in the English Premier League and English football in general in the U.S.

“You have the same clubs, the same brand names, [like] Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea that resonate with American sports fans — and that creates affinity that carries over to the women’s game,” he says.

Sternberg perceives the deal with CBS to be a very positive development for football generally, not just women’s football in the U.S.

“I think it shows that the audience interest is substantial and continues to grow,” he says.

There, of course, is the high profile streaming wars centered on the EPL, which concluded in late November 2021. Nine media companies bids, including Amazon, CBS, ESPN, FOX, NBC and WarnerMedia. The value of the final deal came to a staggering—and unexpected—$2.7 billion.

CBS wins this time

With the WSL, Cohen says it’s not a surprise that CBS won out, given NBC’s platform programming strategies.

“The Premier League underpins Peacock’s sports programming strategy, the WSL does not at this time,” he says.

The NBC Sports one-year deal was put in place, Cohen says, largely due to a trial strategy marked by good timing.

“NBC had some available windows and it did not cost them much to air the WSL, and with the high caliber of content and production, it was worth a trial to see how the content performed on NBC platforms,” says Cohen, adding: 

“It also didn’t hurt to provide support to an additional top tier football property with a lot of crossover with the English Premier League.”

Sternberg points to CBS Sports’ existing women’ soccer properties and the doling out of more money as the primary reasons. But he adds that the network had intended on acquiring the UEFA Champions League rights for the women to go with the men’s tournament.

“And when those went to DAZN instead they had some budget left over and they deployed that to acquire the Super League,” he says.

CBS Sports’ commitment, Sternberg believes, is very much driven by their ambitions in the OTT and direct-to-consumer space.

“They quite correctly identified international soccer as a potentially meaningful driver of subscriber acquisition and retention and it’s a sport with ever-growing popularity,” he says.

That, and the fact that the sport is carried out almost year round supports the wealth of content available.

CBS Sports commits to soccer

“The seasons are long, and the core customer in the U.S. has long been used to paying extra to get access to it, whether that be via pay-per-view and closed circuit TV in the old days, or extra digital cable packages where soccer TV channels were curated in the 2000s and later,” says Sternberg.

“So the fact that it’s still behind a paywall is nothing new for that core fan. And I think there’s a willingness on the consumer side to continuing paying — and that fits in well with the strategy they have for Paramount Plus."

Sean McManus, chairman of CBS Sports, spoke at the SBJ Media Innovators Summit in New York last November. McManus told the audience that the network is investing an enormous amount of money in original content—and behind it all is this value of sports.

Addressing the audience for Paramount+ which launched in March 2021, McManus says it’s a much younger demographic and much more diverse than traditional network television.

“So that audience is directly relatable to the soccer audience,” he says.

“When we looked at what sports we really wanted to plant our flag in the ground for, we looked at a lot of different sports…Soccer was certainly one of those. With the NWSL we have a major commitment to women’s soccer, both on linear where we are going to carry the championship game and on cable and on Paramount Plus.

"When you want to reach the right audience for soccer, there's no better place than Paramount Plus, with respect to the diversity, the age — the breadth of the audience we are reaching.”