By the turn of the 21st century, OLN became better known for its extensive coverage of the Tour de France but eventually began covering more "mainstream" sporting events, resulting in its relaunch as Versus in September 2006.

In its early days, the channel reached around one million homes and found most of its carriage via the then-infant platforms of direct broadcast satellite services and digital cable.

Coverage of the Tour on OLN brought substantially greater viewership to the then fledgling channel, due in part to the then-growing popularity of American rider Lance Armstrong.

[4] Following the 2005 Tour (where Armstrong captured his seventh victory in the race, and announced his retirement from cycling afterward), OLN debuted a new lineup of programming–led by the acquisition of off-network reruns of the reality competition series Survivor.

[8] Due in part to Armstrong's absence from the Tour in 2006, its ratings for live coverage of the first four stages of the race drew 49% fewer viewers than previous years.

With the NFL also shopping a new late-season package of Thursday and Saturday night games to potential broadcasters, speculation began to emerge that Comcast would bid on the new NHL contract as its first step to transforming OLN into a mainstream sports channel that could compete with ESPN.

[9] In August 2005, ESPN declined to match Comcast's offer, and OLN acquired pay television rights to the NHL beginning in the 2005–2006 season in a three-year deal worth close to $200 million.

The channel also began televising Chuck Norris's World Combat League, a kickboxing promotion featuring a unique round ring without ropes.

Versus entered into a partnership with World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) to bring mixed martial arts events to the channel, with the first being broadcast live on June 3, 2007.

[20] On August 7, 2008, the channel announced a 10-year deal with the Indy Racing League to broadcast at least 13 IndyCar Series events a year in HD, beginning in 2009.

[25] It was revived by NBC Sports Radio in 2019 after the PASPA Act was declared unconstitutional, though NBCSN instead blended betting content into regular programming.

[26] The Ultimate Fighting Championship would air two live events on the channel due to the new contract agreement with UFC sister promotion World Extreme Cagefighting.

The first edition of UFC on Versus aired on March 21, 2010, headlined by Brandon Vera vs. Jon Jones in the Light Heavyweight division.

[31] For the 2011 season, Versus also returned to airing National Lacrosse League telecasts with a nine-game package, starting with the 2011 All-Star Game and culminating with the Champion's Cup final.

As part of the announcement, Dick Ebersol, the former chairman of NBC Sports, said that Versus would be renamed "within 90 days" in order to reflect the synergy resulting from the merger.

In the months leading up to the relaunch, NBC struck deals with Major League Soccer,[39] dropped the UFL,[40] and added coverage of college hockey games.

[36][42][43] Its coverage of the women's soccer gold medal match between the United States and Japan set a new viewership record for the network, with 4.35 million viewers.

[45] On September 22, 2013, NBCSN broadcast an episode of Under Wild Skies—a hunting program aired as a time-buy by the NRA—in which host and NRA lobbyist Tony Makris was shown killing an African elephant on a trip to Botswana.

Under Wild Skies was pulled from the network entirely after Makris made remarks on an NRA-produced webcast comparing critics of the show to Hitler.

Two months later, NBCSN added an hour-long simulcast of the Sky Sports News channel to its weekday morning lineup, returning that program to the American airwaves for the first time since the discontinuation of Fox Soccer in September 2013.

Peacock, NBCUniversal's new streaming service, began to broadcast some of the network's former programming such as Notre Dame hockey, and would also simulcast several major sports events held by NBCSN as a transitional move, most notably the opening games of the 2021 Stanley Cup Finals.

[55][56] Following a gradual "wind-down" of operations (even further aggravated by NBC's loss of NHL rights), it was further disclosed as to the process of how NBCSN would cease operations on November 2, 2021; specifically, it was revealed on that date that a majority of NBCSN's sports rights, beginning with rights to Premier League soccer, would transfer over to USA Network, the Olympic Channel (which itself shut down nine months after NBCSN did)[57] and Peacock, beginning at 12:00:01 a.m. on January 1, 2022; at that time, the network, after signing off, would then carry a looping advisory video advising viewers where their programs could be found until January 10, though the provider could simply take the channel dark immediately after sign-off.

This was the third MMA promotion that NBC Sports has hosted, having broadcast World Extreme Cagefighting and Ultimate Fighting Championship events when the channel was formerly known as Versus.

[75][76] On December 16, 2012, NBC Sports Network, along with CNBC, aired a portion of the Sunday Night Football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the New England Patriots.

This was because the game's coverage on NBC was interrupted by President Barack Obama's press conference following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

The deal includes broadcast rights to the second half of the NASCAR Playoffs and Xfinity Series seasons; the majority of which will air on NBCSN.

[78][79] On August 17, 2014, NBCSN aired rain-delayed coverage of the USGA's 2014 United States Amateur Challenge, making it the first golf event to be televised on the network.

[83] In February 2019, it was announced that The Dan Patrick Show would be dropped and replaced by an encore of PFT Live and an hour-long simulcast block of British sister channel Sky Sports News.

[84] At the beginning of September 2009, DirecTV pulled Versus from its lineup, as it was unable to reach terms on a rate increase demanded by Comcast.

The paid programming itself was also subject to pre-emption with live sports from Asia or Australia, and fully put on hiatus during Olympic coverage.