Professional Bull Riders splits media rights with CBS, Dr. Phil

Even Dr. Phil joins television’s frenzied battle for sports rights.

The daytime mainstay has long been known for doling out common sense advice without any bully. Now that’s going to change.

Starting in July, a significant portion of Professional Bull Riders events will be seen on Merit Street Media, the TV outlet launched earlier this year by Phil McGraw, who previously hosted the syndicated “Dr. Phil” program between 2002 and 2023. As part of a new four-year agreement, McGraw’s Merit Street will host PBR Teams events; the full schedule for PBR Unleash The Beast, the sport’s individual competition series; and 50 episodes of “PBR Now,” a news, information and analysis program.

“I think we’ll bring viewers to the bull riding, and I think the bull riding will bring the viewers to us,” McGraw said in an interview.

CBS, which has broadcast PBR events since 2012, meanwhile has extended its deal with the Endeavor-backed league through 2030 and will air 25 hours of PBR events on its flagship broadcast network and Paramount+. PBR is moving some of the events that had been shown on cable via the CBS Sports Network to Merit Street.

“PBR’s aptitude for growth and dynamic attitude have pushed them to new heights, and we look forward to delivering PBR to viewers nationwide on CBS and Paramount+, with more broadcast hours than ever before,” said Dan Weinberg, executive vice president president of CBS Sports. chairman of programming.

Terms of the deals were not disclosed, but a person familiar with the matter says PBR has increased fees for all its TV rights and expects it to be more than double what it has raked in in the past for the Unleash the Beast series.

The new agreements will give PBR greater visibility and make more events available to fans, said Sean Gleason, CEO and commissioner of PBR. Dividing the rights among different parties to maximize access to the property is “the wave of the future,” he said in an interview. “You have to go where the viewers are and follow their eyes, and not tie yourself to traditional cable and satellite,” he says. Under the new structure, PBR will maintain the visibility it receives on CBS’ major broadcast channel, but also distribute more of the sport to fans through Merit Street, which is available via over-the-air channels and a variety of digital and streaming channels. , including his own.

Merit Street plans to boost PBR in many ways, says McGraw, who airs about 300 hours of PBR content on television annually. “We’re really going to help people get to know the bull riders and dig deeper into their stories, and we’re going to produce highlight shows and post-game shows.” RidePass, a Western sports and lifestyle channel that streams on Paramount Global’s Pluto streaming service, is moving to McGraw’s Merit+, a free broadband channel. Merit Street will also host six two-hour Women’s Rodeo World Championship events, through the WRWC’s partnership with PBR.

The battle for sports rights has engulfed the entire video industry. Earlier this week, Netflix said it would offer at least one NFL game on Christmas over the next three years under a new pact with the NFL. Wall Street keeps Warner Bros. Discovery is facing new scrutiny after reports emerged that both NBCUniversal and Amazon Prime Video were on the verge of securing new rights deals from the NBA, even though Warner has been a major league partner since the mid-1980s.

In the streaming age, TV viewers can watch their favorite dramas and comedies at times of their choosing. But sports matches lose some of their appeal once they end, a dynamic that drives more people to watch such things live. As such, sports may be the last TV format guaranteed to generate the large number of concurrent viewers that advertisers and distributors still crave.

Since launching in February by partnering with Trinity Broadcasting Network, a major religious broadcaster that is a major owner of TV stations, McGraw has lured several longtime TV personalities to his business, including Nancy Grace and Steve Harvey. “I think we’re way ahead of where we hoped to be,” McGraw says. Today, Merit Street can reach more than 80 million homes through broadcast stations, cable and satellite distribution and broadband connections. “It’s early to have a lot of metrics, but all the metrics we have so far are multiples of what we thought we would be and where they envisioned us,” McGraw says.

He has never ridden a bull himself, he says. “I’ve had enough sense to stay away from them.” But he has long been interested in rodeo and thinks PBR has room to grow. “We think that so much more can be done with the sport than has been done so far. There are so many interesting stories and characters involved in the sport that were never fully developed.” He expects PBR content may find its way into other parts of Merit Street content.

McGraw remains optimistic about the prospects of traditional TV in an increasingly digital business. ‘I’m not new to this. I know that linear television is on a downward trend, not an upward trend,” he says. “But it’s still such a big way for people to get information. Even if the trend is down, it’s still a monster.”

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