• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, April 15, 2009

After four years on Comcast-owned Versus, the famed Boston Marathon will move to the Universal Sports network -- partly operated by NBC Sports -- next week.

Under the deal, the network -- which has significant carriage across the country on multicast channels -- will air the race live Monday and stream it worldwide on its Web site, UniversalSports.com.

Universal Sports, which broadcasts Olympic-oriented sports, carried the moniker World Championship Sports Network until last year, when NBC took a stake. It acquired rights to the Boston event via a deal with race operator the Boston Athletic Association (BAA).

In the agreement, Universal Sports pays a rights fee to the BAA, and provides it with ad time for its own sponsors, including John Hancock, Gatorade and AT&T. The inventory Universal keeps during the broadcast will be used for some of its steadfast advertisers, such as Nike.

Local affiliates will also receive inventory.

The BAA produces the broadcast and Universal will pick up that feed, but have its own announcers, including the well-known Al Trautwig. Boston's CBS station WBZ will carry the race in New England and use that same feed, with its own announcing team.

While Versus aired the Boston event -- now in its 113th year -- nationally a year ago, Universal Sports, then WCSN, carried it on its Web site with Adidas as the sponsor.

A rep for the BAA said the group preferred Universal Sports over Versus for the telecast this year because of the opportunity to engineer a deal with simultaneous on-air and online feeds.

"It made sense for us to try to align the streaming element with a television network," said Jack Fleming, BAA marketing and communications director.

He said Versus appeared to be more eager to "drive as many people as possible" to its on-air feed. "It's just a different philosophy."

Fleming said the importance of the online streaming is elevated, since the race takes place on a Monday -- and the Web will allow many people to tune in at work. The race also has international appeal, since many contenders come from overseas, and viewers in Europe and Africa, where there is significant interest in marathons, can watch it.

"The BAA realized with us that the worldwide online audience is great," said Universal Sports president-COO Carlos Silva. Versus executive Meier Raivich said in an email: "We valued our relationship with [the BAA] and discussed continuing but, unfortunately, both sides came to the conclusion that we could not figure out a deal that made sense to each of us."

Even with the compensation from Universal Sports and WBZ, Fleming said the nonprofit BAA still loses money on the production. Primary revenues for the race come from entry fees and sponsorship dollars.

Universal Sports also carries the London, Berlin, Chicago and New York marathons, all live online and some live on the network. But Boston, the most prestigious event, left a hole until now. "We always wanted to get Boston, since it's the oldest, and it's really a great brand," said Silva.

The network now has carriage in about 45 million homes, including a multicast channel by NBC's English-language owned-and-operated stations. Other large markets where it has multicast distribution include Houston, Indianapolis and Raleigh.

Last April, the network had distribution in the 2-million-home range. Once NBC took a stake and made it available via distribution with its owned stations, coverage increased significantly.

The network's relationship with NBC allowed it to carry replays of events from the Beijing Olympics last fall.