Sports will remain a key priority for CBS and parent company Paramount in their new Skydance-led ownership structure, network officials insisted. 

Less than a week after the closing of the $8 billion, hotly debated merger between Skydance and Paramount, signs have been clear both internally and externally of the critical role that CBS Sports will play going forward in the combined operation. 

“They love sports. They value sports. They’ve been very public about that from the day they announced this deal,” CBS Sports president and CEO David Berson said during a Tuesday event to preview the network’s 2025 NFL coverage. “It’s continued to be very clear, and you saw that with our UFC announcement [Monday]. I don’t think that you could have made a bigger, bolder move right out of the gate.”

That seven-year, $7.7 billion deal with TKO Group Holdings for the U.S. rights to UFC could soon be joined by other rights deals. While the market for major, long-term sports rights is now quickly winnowing, there are some notable pieces still available. Among them:

• MLB: The league is marketing a short-term package of rights being abandoned by ESPN. “There are a lot of baseball fans around here, including some of our new management,” Berson said.
• Zuffa Boxing: Paramount has been directly linked to the new boxing venture backed by UFC parent company TKO Group Holdings and Saudi entities. Berson did not confirm a pending deal there but said, “We’re excited to see where they go with that. They’re getting close to finalizing something there. We have a great relationship, and I anticipate that, too, being quite successful for them.”

Big NFL Plans

CBS, meanwhile, is eyeing a bounceback year of sorts for its NFL viewership in 2025. High hopes last year ultimately did not materialize as regular-season ratings fell 1%. Average game viewership of 19.2 million, however, was still the network’s second-best figure since 1998, trailing only the record-setting 2023 campaign. 

Helping lift those network hopes are two blockbuster games on its schedule: a Nov. 2 clash between the Chiefs and Bills, now arguably the NFL’s top rivalry, and a Thanksgiving game between Kansas City and Dallas, the league’s top two viewership draws. CBS will also have up to nine Chiefs games overall.

“We’re about big things that matter, and this is further testament of that,” Berson said. 

Part of the ratings recovery could derive from a new relationship with measurement agency Nielsen, which is in the midst of rolling out an enhanced methodology to track viewership that includes both linear and streaming audiences.

“These are the metrics that they’re using, we’re using, everybody’s using,” Berson said. “Let’s just hope it reflects [viewership] accurately, and that we keep setting records.”

You Are Looking Live

The network’s 2025 NFL plans also include two notable pieces surrounding its The NFL Today pregame show. The stalwart programming will be expanded with a supplemental, digital show, The NFL Today+, that will air weekly from 10 a.m. ET to noon and particularly target younger viewers. 

On Sept. 21, meanwhile, CBS will also have a throwback version of The NFL Today to honor the show’s 50th anniversary and its trailblazing role as a live lead-in to NFL game action. Original host and sports broadcasting icon Brent Musburger, now 86, will make a special appearance on the show, which will also feature vintage graphics.

The NBA’s pseudo-exclusive hold on Christmas Day has been infiltrated by the NFL in recent years, but it appears to be attempting to grow its legacy on another federal holiday alongside a new broadcast partner.

On Tuesday, NBC announced several notable games for the 2025–26 NBA season, including a four-game slate on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. While the league has maintained a consistent presence on the holiday, which lands on Jan. 19 next year, this is the first time it will have a four-game slate that will be aired or streamed nationally.

MLK Day Schedule

The lineup opens with a Peacock-exclusive game, which overlaps with a tripleheader on both NBC and Peacock (all times are ET).

• 1 p.m.: Bucks at Hawks (Peacock only)
• 2:30 p.m.: Thunder at Cavaliers (NBC, Peacock)
• 5 p.m.: Mavericks at Knicks (NBC, Peacock)
• 8 p.m.: Celtics at Pistons (NBC, Peacock)

A league source tells Front Office Sports that the four-game slate will not be the only NBA contests scheduled on MLK Day. The NBA typically has a full slate of games—it had eight last year—with just two that aired on TNT Sports networks, the league’s former broadcast partner. The full NBA schedule will be released Thursday.

This is different from the NBA’s Christmas plan, with a five-game national slate on ESPN networks and no other games on the calendar.

The NFL has, however, scheduled multiple games on Christmas since 2022, and is expected to have three games on the holiday for the foreseeable future. In 2024, the NBA had its most-watched Christmas lineup in five years, while the NFL broke streaming records on Netflix.

The NBA can attempt to plant its flag on MLK Day and own another holiday without competing with the NFL—though the NFL has scheduled divisional-round playoff games in recent years. There were no NFL games on MLK Day last year, and there are not expected to be any scheduled for this coming season.

Sunday Night Basketball

NBC, one of the NBA’s new media partners under an 11-year, $77 billion deal that starts this upcoming season, also announced the launch date of Sunday Night Basketball on Feb. 1. The coverage will be akin to the network’s Sunday Night Football coverage and include a one-hour studio program.

There will be either one or two games covered by Sunday Night Basketball. The networks also announced Peacock NBA Monday, which will be the first exclusively streamed NBA games. There will be up to three games featured per night.

The first will be a doubleheader on Oct. 27, the first Monday of the season, as the Cavaliers visit the Pistons and the Timberwolves host the Nuggets.

Golf’s U.S. Open will remain on NBC through at least 2032 as part of an extended media-rights deal between the network and the USGA.

The new pact, announced Tuesday, is for six years and takes effect in 2027, following the expiration of the current media-rights agreement. It involves both NBCUniversal and Versant, the new independent media company set to be spun out from Comcast, encompassing cable networks like Golf Channel and USA Network. It marks the first sports media-rights acquisition for Versant.

Terms were not revealed, but CNBC’s Scott Wapner reported the deal is “valued around $95 million annually.” Puck previously reported that the USGA would receive close to the $93 million it has been paid annually under a 12-year, $1.1 billion deal that started with Fox Sports in 2025 and transferred to NBC Sports in 2020. Fox paid a lump sum of $323 million to get out of that deal after five years, according to Money in Sport, and NBC has been paying the difference (roughly $47 million annually). NBC previously had USGA media rights from 1995 to 2014 before the Fox deal.

In addition to the U.S. Open, NBC will continue to be the exclusive broadcast home of the U.S. Women’s Open and U.S. Senior Open. USA Network will provide some coverage of the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open, while Golf Channel will carry coverage of other USGA championships like the U.S. Senior Open, U.S. Senior Women’s Open, U.S. Amateur, U.S. Women’s Amateur, U.S. Junior Amateur, U.S. Girls’ Junior, U.S. Adaptive Open, Walker Cup, and Curtis Cup. Peacock will stream all USGA programming airing on NBC.

In June, the final round of the U.S. Open averaged 5.4 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, as J.J. Spaun won his first major championship following a roughly 90-minute stoppage of play at a rain-soaked Oakmont Country Club. That was down just over 8% from last year’s U.S. Open, which averaged 5.9 million viewers as Bryson DeChambeau outdueled Rory McIlroy at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina.

Scottie Scheffler has quietly clinched another multimillion-dollar payout that elevates his bonus money earned this season past his on-course tournament winnings.

After pocketing $18 million for finishing the PGA Tour’s regular season with the most FedEx Cup points, Scheffler is set to earn another $5 million for being in first place in the FedEx Cup standings after this week’s BMW Championship, thanks to a new bonus money distribution structure that was implemented midseason.

That will give Scheffler $23 million in bonus money so far this season, compared to $20.36 million in tournament prize money. (If Scheffler wins the BMW Championship, his prize money earned would vault to $23.96 million.)

Scheffler—thanks to finishing tied for third at last week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship—is 2,012 points clear of Rory McIlroy, who sits in second place. The most points McIlroy could earn this week is 2,000 if he wins. So, even if Scheffler didn’t play this week, he would still earn the $5 million for being first in the FedEx Cup standings through the BMW Championship, which is the penultimate FedEx Cup playoff event.

The top 30 players in the FedEx Cup standings after the BMW Championship will qualify for the season-end Tour Championship, and each will earn a bonus payout. Second place will receive $3.5 million, third place $2.6 million, all the way down to $195,000 for 30th.

The Tour Championship will have a $40 million purse, as part of its new format that has eliminated the controversial starting strokes that have been used since 2019. The winner at East Lake Golf Club will receive $10 million, meaning Scheffler could end up with more than $30 million in on-course prize money this season. 

However, even if he were to win the BMW Championship and Tour Championship, his total earnings would be able to reach just $56.96 million, which would fall short of the $62.2 million he made last season.