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Brian Steinberg
Senior TV Editor
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DERREK KUPISH AMC Global Media is known for high-level dramas such as “Mad Men,” “Dark Winds” and “Better Call Saul.” Now the peak-TV purveyor thinks it can make a scene by playing sports.
The company, which operates AMC, Shudder and BBC America, among other outlets,has no massive deal ready to unveil that will put it in cahoots with the NFL or Major League Baseball. But it is poised to dig more deeply into sports-themed scripted and documentary programming, eager to win viewers over to the one thing that seems able to keep gathering sizable crowds in the streaming era.
“We know we’re not going to be buying any of the major sports leagues, but we can tap into that audience,” says Dan McDermott, chief content officer of AMC Global Media and president of AMC Studios, during a recent interview.
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AMC has greenlit “Thunder Road,” a new scripted series in partnership with NASCAR that stars Dennis Quaid as the patriarch of a racing family fighting off multiple challenges. The company has also renewed “Rise,” a sports documentary series that takes viewers behind the scenes of sports dynasties, like the next cycle’s post-Katrina New Orleans Saints, or last season’s look at the San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s. AMC now also serves as the home of TNA Wrestling. In development: a series based on the popular 1991 action film “Point Break,” in which an undercover agent must infiltrate a group of surfers.
Costly NBA rights or NFL alliances are “not our market,” says Kim Kelleher, president and chief commercial officer of AMC Global Media. “But telling the stories behind those great seminal moments, that is laser-focused for us.”
Link-ups with the NFL, NBA and other big leagues cost billions that mid-size to small media companies like AMC don’t have to spend. But there’s no reason such outlets can’t take to the field.
Over at Vice TV, a joint venture of Vice Media and A&E Global Networks, the schedule is filled partially with sports documentary series like “The Verdict,” in which host Chris “Mad Dog” Russo contemplates some of the great debates about top athletes, or women’s professional women’s wrestling.
This is a game every media company has to play. The migration of traditional TV watchers to streaming services has given even the most passive viewers the tools they need to set up their own programming schedule. In the process, however, one of the big distinguishing aspects of TV – the large audiences who once assembled to watch dramas, sitcoms and reality shows – has eroded. The only TV format that seems impervious to the dynamic is live sports, which brings broader crowds together and has a conclusion that gives every game being televised a rather short shelf life.
Before taking a swing at sports, AMC executives examined one of the company’s core audiences — fans of “The Walking Dead” franchise, which has spurred multiple series across the company’s flagship cable outlet. “It’s a national audience. It doesn’t over favor the coasts. It has always been a very blanket audience from Texas to Maine,” says Kelleher. “I feel like what we saw when we started looking into the wrestling space is there was a great affinity in the same way.”
AMC may not have served up sports drama in the past, but it can find properties that fit its longstanding criteria, says McDermott. The company still looks for unique characters, worlds that viewers may not regularly experience and stories that offer something more than just a tale well told. “We also think a hallmark of a great AMC show is to really try to say something about the world we live in,” says the executive.
Because “Thunder Road” is produced with NASCAR, AMC gets help in staying true to the real details of the sport and access to the organization’s sponsors, who could makle for potential advertisers in the future. NASCAR is known for devising unique placements for ad messages in the sport, says Evan Adlman, executive vice president of commercial sales and revenue operations, AMC Global Media, who has already seen “a lot of inbound” interest in the show.
But because the racing league is involved, AMC needs to step cautiously. The characters can be flawed, and cars can crash, McDermott says, but NASCAR wanted race scenes to look authentic and was adamant that the series not depict anyone driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The edict was understandable, he says. “Look, at the end of the day, we want to do for NASCAR what ‘F1’ did for Formula One,” he adds.
Can a scripted series aspire to the large audience captured by sports? AMC seems willing to play the long game.
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