NBC Sports will not be a sponsor of the nation's largest gun trade show next year, a spokesperson confirmed to Media Matters. The network had served for several years as a top sponsor of the event, which has billed itself as a show of industry strength against stronger gun laws.

“Our level of sponsorship has varied each year, and this January we will not be sponsoring the show because it does not make business sense for us at this time,” said the NBC Sports spokesperson.

The Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show calls itself the “the largest and most comprehensive trade show for all professionals involved with the shooting sports, hunting and law enforcement industries” and “the world's premier exposition of combined firearms.” Manufacturers use the event to show off their latest products, typically including an array of assault rifles, tactical shotguns, and pistols with high-capacity magazines.

According to its organizer, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (the trade association for firearms manufacturers and dealers), the trade show is also “a powerful display of industry unity and its resolve to meet any challenge affecting the right to make, sell and own firearms.”

In January, NBC Sports returned as the sponsor of the show's New Product Center, “the showcase for innovative, new equipment being introduced to the hunting, shooting, outdoors and law enforcement markets,” using the event to promote their hunting programming. That sponsorship drew criticism since it came in the wake of NBC Sports host Bob Costas' on-air censure of the nation's “gun culture” and the December 2012 mass shooting in Sandy Hook, CT.

While NBC Sports will not sponsor the event, their executives will be at the show conducting meetings and entertaining clients, according to the network's spokesperson, who stressed that the network is participating for the show's focus on hunting and outdoor sports, not firearms.

The statement comes just days after a controversy involving the network's firearms programming. 

On September 29, NBC Sports announced that it had cancelled the National Rifle Association-sponsored hunting show Under Wild Skies. That program came under fire after the network aired an episode in which an elephant was shot in the face twice by host Tony Makris, a prominent NRA strategist.

Makris subsequently compared people who criticized the episode to Adolf Hitler, comments the network described as “outrageous and unacceptable” in a statement announcing the program's termination.

While NBC Sports is taking a pass on next year's SHOT Show, the Outdoor Channel, which also airs hunting programs, recently committed for the fourth consecutive year to a “Pinnacle-level sponsorship,” the highest level associated with the show.