Comcast is taking most of its legacy cable networks—USA, CNBC, MS NOW (MSNBC with the consonants sanded down), E!, SYFY, Oxygen, Golf Channel—and bolting them onto digital side hustles like Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass, and SportsEngine. The result: Versant, a stand-alone company that will trade as VSNT and pitch itself as a “pure-play” cable/digital bundle.
Wall Street gets a levered cash-flow vehicle. Comcast gets to say the mother ship is broadband, Peacock, Universal parks, film, and broadcast. Versant gets to step onto the field labeled “melting ice cube, but cash generative.”
The spin metrics
Management’s preview pegs Versant at roughly $6.6B in 2025 revenue, $2.2B in EBITDA, and ~$1.4B in free cash flow. Even with cord-cutting eroding low-single digits annually, that’s a double-digit FCF yield on a ~$10B equity value. In other words: terminal, but terminal in slow motion.
Inside that machine sits USA Sports—the new label for the sports portfolio living across USA Network, Golf Channel, and CNBC overflow. Versant’s first pitch is obvious: live rights are the only thing that still makes a cable bundle feel mandatory.
What is USA Sports?
The press release answer: a division producing 10,000+ hours of sports programming in 2026, covering NASCAR, PGA TOUR, Premier League, WWE, WNBA, USGA and R&A majors, LPGA, PGA of America events, Atlantic 10 hoops, DP World Tour, Augusta National shoulder coverage, college golf, and the new League One Volleyball (LOVB) package.
It’s a deliberate mix:
- Car racing and Premier League for the traditional “big bundle” crowd.
- Golf as the 24/7 backbone feeding Golf Channel, GolfNow, and GolfPass.
- WWE, WNBA, and LOVB to keep primetime sticky and appeal to fans who aren’t reliving 1987.
Versant says that portfolio will deliver ~1,000 hours of women’s sports in 2026. That’s not charity; it’s a bet that the next growth tranche comes from audiences who were never served by the old bundle.
MS NOW, Golf Channel, and the “live or nothing” posture
Versant’s property list is basically a diagram of how to squeeze value out of the last useful parts of cable:
- MS NOW + CNBC for opinion and business news.
- USA Network as the flagship sports + entertainment grid.
- Golf Channel plus GolfNow/GolfPass for the golf-industrial flywheel.
- SportsEngine for youth-sports SaaS revenue.
- Fandango/Rotten Tomatoes for film discovery and commerce.
Versant wants to move from an 80/20 linear-to-digital mix to something closer to 50/50 over the next few years. USA Sports is the bridge: leverage the old-school distribution to feed new digital subscriptions, FAST channels, and commerce plays.
Where the leverage lives
Barron’s and every other spin-off handicapper call this a “melting ice cube.” USA Sports is the rebuttal: NASCAR playoffs, Premier League Saturdays, WNBA, WWE SmackDown, golf majors, and volleyball primetime. In carriage negotiations with Charter, Cox, YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, or Fubo, those rights become the cudgel. Want MS NOW and USA Network? Pay the freight. Want to keep NASCAR playoffs out of your blackout apology emails? Same answer.
What to watch once VSNT trades
- Does USA Sports actually invest in women’s sports and participation-driven events, or was the 1,000-hours stat just launch confetti?
- How fast do FAST channels or shoulder feeds appear under the USA Sports branding to keep younger viewers in the funnel?
- Does Versant prove it can cross-pollinate commerce (Fandango/Rotten Tomatoes) and participation (SportsEngine) with its live rights?
- Does the market believe USA Sports can slow the linear decline, or does it just slap an ever-cheaper multiple on the cash flow?
Versant’s CEO keeps saying they’re “not stuck in old media.” USA Sports is where that claim will be tested—one NASCAR playoff race, Premier League morning, WNBA doubleheader, and Golf Channel “Live From” segment at a time.
