About

UNIVERSO history, coverage, features

UNIVERSO is an NBCUniversal-owned American pay-TV channel that predominantly, but not solely, broadcasts in Spanish. It was founded in 1993, with its demographic being bilingual Hispanic adults, televising live sports, reality shows, music programs, and more.

UNIVERSO was created in October 1993 by Empresas 1BC under the name “GEMS Televisión.” It later rebranded to “mun2,” a name it kept until February 2015, when the channel became NBC UNIVERSO. “NBC” was eventually dropped from its name just two years later.

The NBC UNIVERSO rebranding ushered in an influx of sports coverage. In fact, this move coincided with UNIVERSO’s Spanish-language Super Bowl XLIX broadcast, a common occurrence in years when NBC holds the rights to the NFL event.

UNIVERSO handles Spanish-language sports coverage alongside Telemundo Deportes. As a result, the channel has broadcast some of the most notable sporting events to its viewers, including both the FIFA Men’s and Women’s World Cups, for which it attained the rights from 2015 to 2026.

The channel also began broadcasting Premier League games in Spanish when NBC Sports secured exclusive U.S. broadcast rights in 2013-14 onward, thus landing one of the most illustrious soccer competitions in the world. Other events featured on the channel include NASCAR, Liga MX, WWE SmackDown, WWE Raw, and FIFA World Cup qualifiers involving the USA and Mexico.

The pay-TV channel has enjoyed wide carriage throughout the USA, with Dish, Xfinity, Spectrum, DirecTV, fuboTV, Hulu + Live TV, and more offering the channel. Additionally, UNIVERSO can be streamed on the UNIVERSO NOW streaming service, which is available to authenticated users who have subscriptions with participating TV providers in the USA.