NBC Sports will be home of The Soccer Tournament when action kicks off next month.
NBC announced on Tuesday that The Soccer Tournament (TST), a series of three separate $1 million winner-take-all, 7-on-7 soccer tournaments, will be broadcast across NBC Sports properties this year. The event features three separate competitions — a men’s, a women’s, and a mixed tournament — all of which pay out $1 million to the winning team.
As part of the deal, four TST matches will air on NBC, marking the first time in the tournament’s four-year history that it will have games shown on broadcast television. NBC will air two matches on Saturday, May 30 followed by two semifinal matches on Sunday, May 31. NBCSN and Peacock will broadcast the three championship matches on Monday, June 1. In total, seven matches will air on NBCSN.
“We are excited to return to NBC this year,” TST CEO and co-founder Jon Mugar said in a press release. “Peacock is already a destination for millions of soccer fans across the country and having four games live on NBC will give our event and its players an amazing platform.”
TST is the sister property of The Basketball Tournament, a similar winner-takes-all competition in basketball that held its 12th edition last summer, the second TBT to air across the Fox Sports properties.
For the first time, TST partnered with U.S. Soccer for this year’s tournament. U.S. Soccer also led media rights negotiations with NBC Sports.
“We look forward to working with TST and U.S. Soccer to highlight a wall-to-wall weekend of exciting soccer competition,” Nick Casanova, NBC Sports vice president of programming said in the announcement.
TST has had some A-list celebrities participate in past tournaments, including former NFL players JJ Watt and Pat McAfee, former USWNT stars Carli Lloyd, Hope Solo, and Ali Krieger, and global soccer stars like Sergio Agüero.
This year’s event will feature 48 teams on the men’s side and 16 teams on the women’s side. TST begins May 27 and will stream matches not slated for NBC Sports properties live on YouTube.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.