NBC Sports Leans Further into Betting with Warren Sharp Hire

NBC Sports is bringing on NFL and betting analyst Warren Sharp to provide commentary across multiple platforms, the network announced on Sept. 10. 

Sharp is the founder of Sharp Football Stats and Sharp Football Analysis, where he sells picks to bettors. Formerly a licensed professional engineer, Sharp has more than 180,000 followers on social media. 

He shifted his professional career into full time NFL analytics and has since worked as an analyst for multiple professional football teams, where his contributions center on “increasing efficiency, in-game decision making and situational game management,” according to NBC.

Sharp will make appearances across national and regional linear shoes, and create free written content and videos on NBCSports.com and NBC-owned fantasy sports site RotoWorld. His first work for NBC Sports includes season previews for every NFL team, broken down by division, available on RotoWorld. 

On Sept. 9, sports and pop culture outlet The Ringer also announced that Sharp will be joining its weekly podcast programming to offer betting analysis on Wednesdays and Fridays on The Ringer NFL Show, as well as appear on other top shows.

The hire follows NBC Sports’ major push into the sports betting space with its massive deal with operator PointsBet signed in August. The five-year agreement makes PointsBet the official sports betting partner of NBC Sports. PointsBet also committed $393 million in marketing to the broadcaster while NBCUniversal received a 4.9% equity stake in the company. 

While NBC Sports has yet to launch a gambling-specific show, it could look to ESPN’s “Daily Wager” show for inspiration. The network launched the show, hosted by Doug Kezirian, in March 2019. Itit moved from ESPNEWS to higher-distribution ESPN2 six months later. 

Last month, ESPN signed Kezirian to a new, multi-year contract, and he relocated to Las Vegas to do the show out of the network’s just-opened studio at The LINQ Hotel + Experience.