NBC Olympics, SportsEngine Partner With United World Wrestling
Story Highlights
NBC Olympics and SportsEngine have partnered with United World Wrestling (UWW) on a media rights agreement for 24 UWW events annually through 2020. The agreement includes exclusive and extensive digital rights to the most prestigious wrestling events in the world, which will be live streamed by Trackwrestling, a division of SportsEngine, across desktops, mobile devices, tablets and connected TVs. NBC Sports will also present coverage of major events, including the annual World Championships, on NBCSN.
Coverage begins this week with the World Cup live from Kermanshah, Iran. Trackwrestling will live stream more than 20 hours of coverage of the event, beginning this Thursday, Feb. 16, at 1 a.m. ET with the tournament’s first two sessions (full streaming schedule below).
“NBC Sports Group is thrilled to showcase more wrestling, one of the world’s oldest, and best Olympic sports,” says Jim Bell, President, NBC Olympics Production and Programming. “This is great news for us and for wrestling fans alike, as more content will now be available on more platforms than ever before.”
The agreement includes exclusive television and streaming rights to the World Championships, Freestyle World Cup, Women’s World Cup, and Greco-Roman World Cup through 2020.
“Working with United World Wrestling and having the privilege to distribute live and on demand video associated with events at the pinnacle of our sport is an incredible milestone for Trackwrestling,” says Justin Tritz, general manager of Trackwrestling. “We have worked very hard to build a platform presenting events of this caliber, and it is truly an honor for UWW to have chosen us as its partner. We look forward to many years of distributing this content through our platform for the wrestling world to enjoy.”
Additionally, 20 other UWW World Championships, Olympic year qualifying tournaments, Continental, and Prize Money events in 2017-2020 will be live streamed exclusively on Trackwrestling.com. These events include the Junior World Championships, Cadet World Championships, Non-Olympic Weights World Championships, Veterans World Championships, Golden Grand Prix, Senior European Championships, U23 European Championships, Junior European Championships, Cadet European Championships, Asian Championships, Junior Asian Championships, Pan-Am Championships, Junior Pan-Am Championships, African Championships, Oceania Championships, World Olympic Qualifiers, African and Oceania Qualifiers, European Qualifiers, Pan-Am Qualifiers, and Asian Olympic Qualifiers.
“Wrestling has been working hard to expand its worldwide reach and we think this new relationship helps bring our sport to the next level,” says United World Wrestling President Nenad Lalovic. “Trackwrestling provides wrestling with a significant opportunity to grow our audience in North America and worldwide. NBC Sports and SportsEngine are valuable partners of the Olympic movement and we look forward to seeing how their expertise can help our sport grow.”
For wrestling fans who cannot view these events live, all telecasts will be available on-demand on Trackwrestling.com with a subscription to Trackcast. The events televised by NBCSN will be available on-demand on NBCSports.com.