TV sports: the $3.5 billion ticket; with more competitions, more network players and increasingly more money on the table, it's a whole new ball game.(Cover Story)

Broadcasting & Cable, May, 1996

With more competitions, more network players and increasingly more money on table, it whole new ball game Americans just can't get enough of sports and neither can the TV networks. Nationally and regionally, that programing category was worth $3.5 billion--big business in anybody's ballpark, and about 10% of TV's annual sales.

The Big Four broadcast networks--ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox--pulled in $2.54 billion in sales, up from $2.24 billion in 1993, according to Paul Kagan Associates. (The foursome garnered $2.96 billion in 1994, but that included revenue from the winter Olympics on CBS.) Cable brought home another $951 million, according to the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau. The national networks garnered $736 million, up 17.8% over 1994, while...

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