USSA announces record coverage in new broadcast plan

By Published On: November 26th, 2014Comments Off on USSA announces record coverage in new broadcast plan
Bode Miller manuvers down the Beaver Creek course last season. Miller is expected to be back in action for the World Championships in February. GEPA

Bode Miller maneuvers down the Beaver Creek course last season. Miller is expected to be back in action for the World Championships in February. GEPA

USSA, NBC Sports Group and Universal Sports Network will provide unprecedented coverage of the 2014-15 U.S. ski and snowboarding season, highlighted by the 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships at Vail-Beaver Creek. The partnership will showcase the USSA’s Olympic stars in a record 69 of hours of coverage this season across NBC, NBCSN, and Universal Sports, plus additional digital coverage on NBC Sports Live Extra, UniversalSports.com and the USSA’s family of websites. It’s the largest coverage plan ever for USSA events, the result of the USSA’s innovative global partnerships to bring more ski and snowboarding broadcast coverage to the U.S.

NBC will broadcast 18 hours of USSA coverage this season, the most ever for the network and the largest ski and snowboarding coverage in American history. NBCSN will televise 29 hours, while Universal Sports will present 22 hours of the 2014-15 USSA season, plus its global World Cup schedule.

The coverage is a collection USSA-owned property such as the Nature Valley Aspen Winternational, Audi Birds of Prey, freestyle World Cups in Lake Placid and Deer Valley Resort and the Sprint U.S. Grand Prix, as well as broadcast rights the USSA has acquired in an innovative global partnership for the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.

The schedule represents a 30 percent increase in coverage for USSA events, coming on the heels of a 20 percent increase in ratings last season.

Highlighting the partnership is a record 30 hours of live coverage across the three networks for the 2015 Audi FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, including live coverage of every event for the first time in history. The coverage will showcase U.S. Ski Team Olympic champions like Ted Ligety, Bode Miller, Julia Mancuso, Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn.

NBC Sports Group’s live streaming product for desktops, mobile devices and tablets – will stream all programming that airs on NBC and NBCSN as well as select events not airing live on NBC or NBCSN. UniversalSports.com will live stream all programming that airs on Universal Sports in addition to other select USSA events.

In addition to unprecedented coverage this season, USSA has extended its media-rights partnerships with both NBC Sports Group and Universal Sports. USSA’s partnership with NBC, which began in 1998, now extends through 2019, including the 2017 Audi FIS Ski World Cup Finals in Aspen and the 2019 World Championships in snowboarding, freeskiing and freestyle at Park City.

Universal Sports Network’s extended partnership with USSA includes rights to select domestic USSA events and the 2015 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. In addition to USSA events, Universal Sports showcases a large lineup of international ski and snowboard competitions every year. Through their agreements with FIS and European Broadcast Union, Universal Sports’ alpine coverage includes 66 FIS Alpine World Cup events offering more than 100 hours of exclusive television coverage and 250 hours of live streaming coverage on UniversalSports.com during the 2014-15 season.

Release courtesy of USSA

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