Key Points
- USA Sports will exist as the flagship brand for live sports programming across Comcast’s cable networks that are being separated into Versant.
- The USA Sports brand will offer more than 10,000 hours of live athletic competitions and studio programming covering WWE, WNBA, NASCAR, PGA Tour, Premiere League soccer and other sports.
- USA Sports will air programming across the USA Network, CNBC and Golf Channel, the latter of which will retain its own brand identity.
Versant, the cable networks business being spun out of Comcast’s NBC Universal, has unveiled a brand refresh for its USA Network that is rooted in the channel’s future role as Versant’s flagship sports broadcaster.
The USA Sports brand will exist across the USA Network, Golf Channel and CNBC during live athletic competitions, starting next year, Versant said in a news release on Wednesday.
The new division will feature more than 10,000 hours of event, studio and original sports programming next year, covering golf, motorsports, soccer, wrestling, basketball and more. Rights include the PGA Tour, Premier League soccer, NASCAR, WWE, WNBA, college basketball and League One Volleyball.
USA Sports is similar in nature to other brands like Warner Bros Discovery’s TNT Sports and the E. W. Scripps Company’s Scripps Sports, which use an all-encompassing naming convention for live sports coverage and related programming that exists across a flagship and several ancillary networks.
A significant portion of USA Sports’ schedule will focus on women’s sports, with roughly 1,000 hours dedicated to the WNBA, LPGA Tour, college athletics and League One Volleyball. USA Network will carry more than 50 WNBA games next season, including the WNBA Finals, anchored by Wednesday night doubleheaders. League One Volleyball matches will air weekly from January through the championship in April.
NASCAR’s Cup Series Playoffs will once again air on USA Network in 2026, with 10 of the final 14 races carried live. Premier League soccer will remain a central part of the lineup, with more than 175 matches scheduled for the 2025–26 season.
Golf Channel, which launched in 1995, will keep its own distinct identity within the USA Sports portfolio. The network will unveil a refreshed logo in 2026 and continue to serve as the television home of the PGA Tour, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship and the AIG Women’s Open. Golf Channel will air about 3,200 hours of live golf annually, averaging roughly nine hours per day across major global tours.
Beyond its linear television assets, Versant plans to integrate its digital and streaming businesses under the new sports umbrella, including GolfNow, the online tee-time marketplace; GolfPass, a membership platform co-founded by Rory McIlroy; and SportsEngine, a youth sports technology and video service.
In addition to the three networks that will offer USA Sports programming, Versant’s other cable networks will include SyFy, Oxygen True Crime, E! Network and MSNBC (which will rebrand to MS NOW in a few days). Comcast is retaining its four NBC-branded regional sports networks and the lifestyle-focused Bravo, which will continue to operate under NBC Universal.
