As Versus, the channel had approached the National Football League about carrying select games during league negotiations for broadcasting contracts following the 2005 NFL season. The channel was rebuffed for a deal, with the league deciding instead to give a portion of the cable television game rights to its own NFL Network. Versus approached the National Collegiate Athletic Association for a deal to broadcast college football games, and was awarded a contract to broadcast games from the Mountain West Conference in a joint deal between the channel's owner Comcast and College Sports Television, which also led to the creation of the MountainWest Sports Network. For its inaugural season of college football broadcasts in 2006, Gary Bender or Bob Papa served as the play-by-play announcer, with Glenn Parker as the analyst and Argy Stathapulos as the sideline reporter for Mountain West football game coverage. On June 6, 2007, Versus agreed to a multi-year deal with Fox Sports Net to sub-license up to ten college football games annually from the Pac-10 and Big 12 Conferences, taking the cable rights for both conferences from TBS. The Big 12 sub-licensing deal concluded in 2010, at the same time that Versus increased the number of Pac-10 games sub-licensed from Fox Sports Net to seven per season. In 2008, Versus announced a contract with the Ivy League to broadcast at least three games each year beginning with the 2008 season, culminating in the annual Harvard–Yale game. The initial two-year contract was later renewed in 2010. After the 2010 season, the Pac-10 announced a realignment in which it would acquire two teams from the Mountain West Conference. With addition of rights to one to two extra games to broadcast each week, Fox Sports decided to move some of the Pac-12 games to FX, while Versus would continue holding rights to seven games each season. This lasted until 2012, when the channel lost the conference's games to the newly launched Pac-12 Networks.
To fill the hole created by the loss of Pac-12 football rights, for 2012, the renamed NBC Sports Network by signing a contract to broadcast at least five games per year from the Colonial Athletic Association. The channel announced that it would renew its contract with the Ivy League for two additional seasons, upping the number of broadcasts to six to ten games each season ; the Harvard-Yale game remained one of the broadcasts NBCSN was guaranteed to air. The channel also increased the number of annual Mountain West Conference football broadcasts by two. In 2013, NBCSN lost its share of MW rights to ESPN, which had aired a limited schedule of games from the conference in 2012. It also lost the rights to the Atlanta Football Classic to the ESPN networks; the opponents of that game changed from the Southwestern Athletic Conference to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference beginning that year. On April 9, 2013, NBC Sports renewed its broadcasting contract with Notre Dame for ten years through the 2025 season. As part of the contract, NBCSN acquired the rights to broadcast select home games featuring the team. In 2014, NBCSN lost a portion of the CAA rights to the American Sports Network, an upstart sports syndication service launched that year by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. NBCSN also initially declined to renew its television deal with the Ivy League, which would have left that league without a television broadcaster for the 2014 season; the channel's increased emphasis on Premier League soccer matches reduced the number of opportunities for the network to carry college football on Saturday afternoons. However, NBCSN reversed its decision and added select Ivy League games beginning in late October 2014 in a joint agreement with Fox College Sports. NBCSN lost Ivy League rights after the 2017 season as the conference signed an agreement with ESPN the following year, with most games being moved to subscription serviceESPN+. In 2015, NBCSN gained the rights to carry at least one Notre Dame football game on NBCSN in addition to the spring game. They also became the new television home of the Bayou Classic between Grambling State and Southern.
