The CW Eyes More Bowl Games Amid Push Into Live Sports

The CW president Brad Schwartz describes the network’s strategy of adding increasing blocks of live sports rights as “compounded interest.” 

The Nexstar-owned broadcast network had never aired live sports nationally prior to early 2023, when it added LIV Golf (which has since migrated to Fox Sports). Now it’s accumulated rights for ACC football and basketball, the remnants of Pac-12 football with Oregon State and Washington State, WWE’s NXT, NASCAR, Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track, and AVP Beach Volleyball. The CW and the PBA recently reached an agreement for live bowling, and the network also aired the Arizona Bowl the past two years. 

Mike Perman, who joined the network as SVP of sports earlier this year, told Front Office Sports that they are eyeing additional bowl games. “Based on the success of the bowl season last year and the Arizona Bowl, we’re taking a look to add to those to potentially add to our college landscape,” Perman said. 

The CW still being in territorial expansion mode says something about how the strategy has been working in the past two-plus years.  

“There’s excitement that it’s all working the way that we thought it would,” Schwartz told FOS. “We assumed when we started doing it that our local stations would absolutely love getting live sports, which you don’t DVR. We assumed that adding sports would bring new people to the network, and lead into whatever comes after it—shows that maybe you’d [otherwise] DVR.” 

Some statistics include:

• 40 million people have watched sports on The CW, up from zero. 
• 14 straight NASCAR Xfinity Series races have averaged more than 1 million viewers. 
• Q1 of NXT this year was the highest-rated quarter for the program in five years.
• The network has had five consecutive quarters of year-over-year growth.

Schwartz attributed this “compounded interest” as a means for creating a “flywheel” as the various properties would feed off one another. “That’s kind of what sports does,” he said. “Our affiliates and local stations are thrilled—especially when they get events that are in their local markets. Nobody has mass reach better than broadcast networks. Nobody has mass reach better than sports. You put the two together, and it’s the best combo.” 

The CW has been savvy in adding programming like NASCAR and WWE that have portable audiences, who will find it wherever it airs. On NXT, Schwartz recently went viral for calling WWE’s developmental show a “game changer” for the network. Asked by FOS about how much pickup that quote got, Schwartz said, “The CW doesn’t have a consistent track record of beating other broadcast networks, but here we are on Tuesdays competing with these guys in the 18–49 and 25–54 demos. It elevates the entire network.”