• by Wayne Friedman , July 9, 2013

Universal Sports Network has gotten a big boost in doing a TV distribution deal with Time Warner Cable -- the second-largest U.S. cable system operator.

Universal Sports, which is owned by NBC Sports and InterMedia Partners, LP, focuses on Olympic-related sports. It will now be available some 40 million U.S. TV homes.

Universal Sports isn’t disclosing how many of Time Warner Cable’s 15 million subscribers will have the sports channel. But the company said the network will be on Time Warner’s Sports Pass tier, which means an extra charge for cable subscribers.

The deal gives Time Warner Cable TV Everywhere rights from Universal Sports, as well as video-on-demand content and Universal Sports Max, a secondary events broadband channel.

Universal struck its last big deal with Dish Network February 2012. Dish has 14 million subscribers. Other big TV distributors for Universal Sports include DirecTV. Universal also has IPTV distributors SkyAngel and Century Link.

Other new sports networks continue to look for similar growth, including the One World Sports, which has 20 million subscribers, focusing on international sports; and Al Jazeera-owned beIN Sports, which airs international soccer programming and has some 5 million U.S. subscribers.

Next month, Fox Sports 1 starts a major network launch. It will gain some 90 million subscribers from Speed channel which will convert to Fox Sports 1.