Tales from the NBC-Comcast Merger

When Comcast successfully bought NBC from GE (the merger is still ongoing) MMA fans and media began salivating at the possibilities of the "Big Dream" (some would call it a delusional pipe dream). The logic behind the Big Dream goes as follows: A Comcast-NBC merger would lead to a Versus-NBC Sports merger and as Versus has a relationship with Zuffa the merger would lead to the UFC being placed on primetime and the sports true ascendency as "mainstream".

Despite a lack of evidence that Comcast was even considering such a move pundits couldn't resist pointing out the potential road map vis-a-vi the merger of ABC Sports with ESPN. Never mind the fact that this merger only occurred after ESPN became a multi-billion dollar sports mega-empire and the Versus network is a woeful pile of...well you get the idea. The point is Versus and Comcast by extension are pretty bad at producing creative content, e.g., The Daily Line, so the chances of Comcast remaking NBC in their image was dick to begin with.

Now The Daily Beast is reporting about the potential leadership moves coming down the pipeline .

According to more than a dozen people I've spoken to, the structure the Post presents is largely correct. These people say, nearly unanimously, that NBCU boss Jeff Zucker will step down shortly after the deal's closing by the end of this year, that Comcast will leave Dick Ebersol and Ron Meyer in place as the respective heads of the company's sports and film operations, and that CNBC will be consolidated under NBC News leader Steve Capus' umbrella.

The article goes on to detail that Comcast will most likely promote from within NBC to run the network and cable divisions giving the executives in charge of Bravo and USA the top two positions. I guess that means we can count on the expansion of the life sucking force of the Real Housewives franchise and more Burn Notice clones. But let's face it, we all need more Bruce Campbell.

The retention of Ebersol is the true newsmaker for those hoping for the fulfillment of the Big Dream.

Ebersol run at NBC Sports hasn't exactly gum drops and double rainbows (details here) but the biggest issue has been has been NBC's utter lack of online content - the life blood of MMA.

Here's how one former employee described NBC's online performance in 2009:

If there's any question about his lack of long-term vision and cluelessness regarding contemporary culture, perhaps most indicative is the fact that NBC Sports didn't get around to launching its own sports site until the tail end of 2006. Think about that for a second. By then, Youtube and Facebook were already major online destinations and over half the homes in the country had access to high-speed internet connections, yet NBC Sports didn't have its own site! Meanwhile, sports sites they would soon be competing with, including ESPN.com, Yahoo.com and FoxSports.com, were already drawing over 10 million monthly loyal unique visitors each. Not surprisingly, NBC Sports has never caught up.

Things are changing though as evidence by the purchase of ProFootballTalk.com and thus hope remains that NBC sees MMA as a green pasture for online content expansion  so maybe the Big Dream isn't so far out.

(Note: Comcast is an investor in SB Nation)