The next NBA media rights deal could include fewer games on ESPN and TNT, per a report in The Wall Street Journal.
Incumbent NBA broadcasters ESPN and TNT are considering smaller packages of NBA rights as they negotiate with the league on a new agreement, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. While it has long been thought that any future TNT NBA deal would look “a little bit different” — to quote Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav earlier this year — there has been little, if any, indication of ESPN scaling back its rights.
ESPN executives have been vocal and consistent about their desire to keep the NBA — unlike Zaslav, who at one point last year said his company did not “have to have” the league — and executive Burke Magnus told The Athletic earlier this year that the NBA Finals was a “must-have” for the company.
As the NBA’s desire to add a third — or fourth — broadcast partner would in all likelihood require pulling from ESPN and TNT’s existing packages, the real question may not be whether the incumbents will take on a reduced role, but how reduced said role will be.
ESPN dramatically scaled back its Major League Baseball footprint in its latest rights deal with the league, cutting its weeknight games in a deal that cost nine figures less than its previous contract, but keeping its Sunday night “Game of the Week” and adding the new Wild Card playoff round. The weeknight rights ESPN gave up eventually went to streaming services Apple TV+ and Peacock.
The NBA is also expected to create at least one streaming package, which per the WSJ could consist of both national and local rights. The local part of the equation would include the 15 teams whose rights are held by the bankrupt Diamond Sports Group. According to the report, the NBA intends to regain control of those rights in time to bundle them with its national packages — but left unsaid is how the league would proceed with local rights held by other companies, from the various Comcast-owned RSNs to the likes of MSG Network and Spectrum SportsNet.
It is also not clear that the inclusion of local rights would automatically mean that Amazon and Apple would be willing to pay the kind of rights fees that the NBA is seeking. Previous reporting has indicated that Amazon plans to be circumspect about its spending on additional sports rights. Apple has also shown to be relatively restrained in its spending, offering the Pac-12 a deal so modest that the conference all-but-folded within days of it being presented to members.
(News from WSJ 10.18)
