When NBC televised the Kentucky Derby for the first time in 2001, the broadcast lasted just 90 minutes.
On Saturday, when the network carries the “Run for the Roses” for the 25th time, 90 minutes wouldn’t be enough for all the feature stories that will run leading up to post time — which is set for 6:57 p.m. this year — at Louisville’s Churchill Downs.
NBC Sports will present 12 1/2 hours of coverage related to thoroughbred horse racing across two days, including five hours for Friday’s Kentucky Oaks on USA Network (cable) and Peacock (streaming service). Saturday’s coverage begins on USA at noon before moving to NBC at 2:30 p.m., while Peacock will stream all 7 1/2 hours for the 151st edition of the Kentucky Derby, the opening race of the annual Triple Crown series.
Donna Brothers, the only member of the broadcast team involved with all 25 editions of the Kentucky Derby on NBC, has seen a shift in mindset.
“So much has changed since we first started in 2001. At that time, we thought: ‘Ninety minutes to cover a two-minute race. How are we going to fill all this time?’ Now we are still trying to figure out how we’re going to get this story in and that story in, because there are so many great stories to tell,” Brothers said.
NBC has provided five hours of coverage on the main network on Derby Day since 2018. Sam Flood, the executive producer and president of NBC Sports Production, said the true evolution behind adding more hours while making the coverage appeal to a cross-section of viewers began after he produced his first Kentucky Derby in 2006.
“I remember getting done with the show, which I think was two hours. I kept thinking, ‘We can do so much more,'” Flood said. “There are so many assets here that should be showcased, and that’s when we started blowing it out, adding more hours and slowly shifting more and more hours onto NBC and off the cable platforms.”
The expansion has also included the Kentucky Oaks, which is exclusively for 3-year-old fillies. It was televised on Bravo starting in 2009 before moving to NBC Sports Network and then USA.
Kentucky Derby weekend has evolved into one of the most diverse sporting events that NBC covers annually, and it is on par with the Olympics, which it carries once every two years, and the Super Bowl, which it has once every four years.
It might be the only place where a viewer can see fashion, recipes from one of the hosts of Bravo’s “Top Chef,” and race predictions from NBC News chief data analyst Steve Kornacki.
Mike Tirico, the host of NBC’s coverage since 2017, said doing the Kentucky Derby served as good preparation for hosting the Olympics as well as a stint as a guest host on the “Today” show last week.
“My time doing the Derby helped me to do the ‘Today’ show last week, not vice versa,” he said. “This show is so cool. It goes from speed figures to fascinators. It goes from betting to bourbon. We cover it all in the five hours with a great team of people who dive in and take their space and own it. We all build towards the race. The audience does the same.”
Tirico succeeded Tom Hammond as host. Hammond, a University of Kentucky graduate, was a guiding force around NBC’s early coverage and introducing the sport’s most prominent personalities to viewers.
Lindsay Schanzer, the supervising producer of NBC’s coverage, said one of the advantages of having nearly 4 1/2 hours leading up to post time is the chance to focus on the stories of all the horses that will line up in the starting gate.
Among the features planned are separate pieces on a trio of trainers: Bob Baffert, who served a three-year suspension after Medina Spirit failed a drug test that disqualified his 2021 Kentucky Derby victory; 89-year-old D. Wayne Lukas, who is seeking a fifth victory in the race after wins in 1988, ’95, ’96 and ’99; and Michael McCarthy — he’ll saddle odds-on favorite Journalism — whose family was displaced from their home in Southern California due to the wildfires.
Because of the many different topics in the broadcast, Schanzer has an interesting approach in how she books the coverage with what she calls a colors document, where each element of coverage has its own color.
“I like to look at it from a broad perspective to make sure there’s not too much of one color in one area, and every color is kind of represented across the show so that if you’re watching it, you’re getting a little bit of a taste of everything,” she said. “One color could be a fashion element, one could be Kornacki’s insights, one could be an interview with a horseman. I try to look at it in a holistic way like that.”
The approach has certainly worked. Last year’s broadcast averaged 16.7 million viewers, the largest Kentucky Derby audience since 1989. That included an average minute audience of 714,000 streaming on Peacock.
Overall, 11 of the past 15 Kentucky Derbies held in May (the 2020 race was postponed to September due to the coronavirus pandemic) have averaged at least 15 million.
“We’ve had all kinds of things happen (since 2001), and that’s what’s so unique about the sport, but specifically about the Derby,” said Jon Miller, the president of acquisitions and partnerships for NBC Sports. “You have 20 horses that come into that gate and long shots that can pull off the upset. You have favorites, you have great ownership stories, and you have legendary trainers.
“Who knows who is going to surprise this year? But that’s what’s great about it.”