SSP Expands Its Sports Line-Up: Is the Growth Thesis Strengthening?

The E.W. Scripps Company SSP is leaning into its growing sports strategy with a focus on both national and local partnerships. The company has strengthened its ties with leagues like the WNBA and NWSL and introduced new properties, such as the SI Women’s Games and the Fort Myers Tip-Off Women’s College Basketball Tournament. These events are planned for the fourth quarter, after the WNBA and NWSL seasons wrap up, giving SSP a steady line-up of premium sports content throughout the year.

New partnerships with teams like the Las Vegas Aces and the Florida Panthers are helping SSP drive stronger connections with viewers and advertisers in key markets. It recently renewed its multi-year agreement with the WNBA and added the Tampa Bay Lightning to its sports line-up. More announcements are expected as the company continues building its sports portfolio on ION and across local stations.

In the first quarter of 2025, the Scripps Networks division reported $198 million in revenues and accounted for 37.8% of total company revenues. The segment margin reached 32%, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2022, driven in part by strong growth in Connected TV revenues, which rose 42% year over year. Scripps attributed this performance to effective advertising sales execution and increased demand for live sports programming, particularly from the WNBA and NWSL on ION.

SSP Faces Stiff Competition in Live Sports Programming

Gray Media GTN entered into an extension of its partnership with the New Orleans Saints by five years. This makes the company an official partner and will bring more Saints programming to different networks. Gray Media also formed a new partnership with the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, after which Gray Media will bring Panthers games live in Spanish to its Telemundo audience.

Tegna TGNA, on the other hand, entered into a multi-year extension of its distribution agreement with the Indiana Fever. It further expanded the broadcast relationship with Tegna by having 11 additional Midwest markets join Tegna to air 18 Indiana Fever games for free to 4.6 million households across the region.

SSP’s Share Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

SSP shares have rallied 48.9% in the year-to-date (YTD) period, outperforming the Zacks Broadcast Radio and Television industry’s growth of 25.4% and the Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector’s return of 11.4%.

SSP’s YTD Price Performance

From a valuation standpoint, SSP stock is currently trading at a forward 12-month Price/Sales ratio of 0.13X compared with the industry’s 4.48X. SSP has a Value Score of A.

SSP’s Valuation

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter 2025 loss is pegged at 4 cents per share, which has remained steady over the past 60 days, indicating 73.33% year-over-year growth.

E.W. Scripps Company (The) Price and Consensus

E.W. Scripps Company (The) price-consensus-chart | E.W. Scripps Company (The) Quote

SSP currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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