Sports Summit expands to four days with NBC's Jon Miller headlining

NAB has expanded the Sports Summit to a four-day program under the banner "The Future of Sports Rights and Fan Engagement," running April 18-22 in the Sports Theater on the West Hall floor. For the first time the programming is open to any attendee with a Show Floor Pass rather than requiring a conference upgrade — a deliberate signal that NAB is treating sports as core, not adjacent, to broadcast.

Lumen Technologies is the title sponsor, backed by AWS, Dolby, Google Cloud, NVIDIA, Verizon Business, Eluvio, Evergent, Imagine Communications, OpenDrives, Shure and TwelveLabs. The main-stage keynote, "NBC Sports Playbook: Rights, Partnerships and What's Next," pairs NBC Sports acquisitions chief Jon Miller with Puck's John Ourand. "The media world continues to evolve, but broadcast television remains stronger and more important than ever before," Miller said in NAB's release.

Confirmed panels span "Private Equity, Sovereign Wealth and the Future of Sports Ownership," "Sports Betting and the New Fan Economy," and "Women's Sports at an Inflection Point" — the betting session's inclusion is new and treats data rights and sportsbook partnerships as mainstream distribution topics. League and team participation reaches across MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, NASCAR, PGA Tour, UFC and U.S. Soccer, plus the Cowboys, Chiefs, Bills, 49ers, Heat, Suns and Liverpool FC. In the West Hall Lobby, AWS and Maple Leaf Sports are running a "Cloud Court Challenge" AI basketball activation tied to the Summit.