Take the over!
If you are trying to figure out how many partners the NBA is going to have in its next TV deal, take more than three is what I’m being told.
This is our biggest takeaway for the SportsClicker NBA Media Deal Projection 2.0.
In March, we offered our first NBA Media Deal Projection. Let’s do it again because some things, in our opinion, have changed.
The players: Since March, there is a little more clarity about which entities could potentially do deals and which won’t.
The incumbents, ESPN and TNT, are definitely interested in staying in, and Amazon, NBC, Apple, Google and Netflix are potential new suitors.
USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con
Who is out? Fox and CBS. Top executives at both networks have said they will not be involved.
Current deals: ESPN (Disney) currently pays around $1.4 billion per year. TNT’s (Warner Bros. Discovery) annual number is $1.2 billion. ESPN, with ABC, is the home of the NBA Finals. TNT has the All-Star Game. Both have the regular season and the playoffs. The deals run through next season (2024-25). Both ESPN and TNT have an exclusive negotiating window now and then the league can go to the full market by the spring of 2024.
Why we are betting the over: The NBA is a very desired commodity. Let’s make that clear. But to maximize value on the next round of deals, it may need at least four partners. Let’s enumerate the reasons:
1️⃣ Though Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery both want to retain the NBA, the feeling is they will be satisfied with fewer regular-season games. They still will increase what they are paying. The growing belief is ESPN’s Wednesday regular-season games will largely go away, and TNT could move to just Tuesdays in the regular season, dropping Thursdays. While both potential changes have some momentum, I feel more definitive about ESPN Wednesdays leaving the equation. Thus, these companies will pay a lot, but their totals may not be nuts in comparison to what they currently are doling out.
2️⃣ The NBA is going to add a streamer, but there is no evidence yet that one of the digital companies will do what Amazon did with the NFL. Amazon Prime Video is spending a billion dollars a year for Thursday Night Football, which is way more than any of the networks were willing to pay. But for the NBA to get huge money from Amazon, it likely will need to offer a Thursday Night exclusive starting the week after the NFL ends and then, as Amazon Prime Video head Jay Marine said on the podcast, the company would want the rights to playoffs or something akin to them. Amazon’s proven success on the NFL and its relationship with the NBA make it a perceived favorite for the first digital package.
3️⃣ Apple is the wild card in almost everything. They have endless money, love secrecy (we did break their MLB and MLS deals in this space — thanks for subscribing) and there definitely are relationships between top Apple and NBA executives. The NBA is a forward-thinking league, but the Apple-MLS model of having everything in one spot is impossible at the moment and probably too risky for such an esteemed league as the NBA. The NBA has choices. That said, the NBA likes to emphasize that reach has changed and Apple is definitely thinking about worldwide distribution. A great selling point for the NBA is how international its game is. Is there a deal for Apple and the NBA? It is definitely plausible, but it is unclear what that would entail, at least right now.
4️⃣ Netflix has been put out there as a possibility. There is no evidence that Netflix is going to get heavy into big-time live sports. They have added an ad-supported tier, which does open up the possibility. However, you usually build it up from smaller deals to a big splash. Could they do a small NBA deal? Maybe, but I don’t see much evidence yet. Google-YouTube added NFL Sunday Ticket, which may make them players for the NBA. Apple, Google and Netflix are all wild cards, but are they going to seriously overpay for major rights? Even if they did, would the NBA want to risk too much of their future on uncertainty?
5️⃣ The deal to look at is the latest major sports rights agreement: NASCAR just received a 40 percent increase on its last contract. Though it picked up more money, it took five partners to do it. NASCAR renewed with NBC and Fox, while adding The CW, WBD Sports and Amazon.
Here’s your half-full/half-empty way to look at having all these partners. Half-full? All these big platforms are promoting your product. Half-empty? Your fans have difficulty finding your product. It also could make it difficult for new viewers to make it a habit.
6️⃣ So Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery want the NBA, but don’t want as much of it. They will pay more, but how much more? You add in a streamer, which will pay top dollar, but will want some showcase events. The NBA would like to add distribution, and Adam Silver is said to have a soft spot for NBC. He and NBC Universal chairman Mark Lazarus go way back to the Turner Sports deal days. NBC, though, is not going to go crazy in terms of spending for the NBA. It is more of a nice-to-have than a must-have.
7️⃣ This is why taking the over on three partners is the best as we soon turn the calendar to 2024.
RSN wild card: With Diamond Sports — which currently leases the rights to 15 teams — in trouble, how the NBA navigates the local market is worth monitoring. Most of the streaming players have some level of interest in these daily local-market games, so that very well could add to the overall amount on the NBA’s deal. As mentioned in a previous newsletter, the NBA may be able to offer more games of its marquee teams to digital players, as some of the limits to satisfy current RSN deals could be lessened if Diamond’s deal unwinds. This could create the possibilities for domestic and international deals rolled into one. Bottom line, there may be room for creativity.
SportsClicker Projection 2.0:
1️⃣ ESPN/ABC keeps the Finals every other year, much of the playoffs and airs regular-season games on Fridays and Saturdays.
2️⃣ TNT keeps Tuesday regular-season games, the All-Star Game and a little less playoffs.
3️⃣ Amazon Prime Video starts TNB after TNF. It ends up with Thursday Night Basketball and playoffs.
4️⃣ NBC gets the Finals every other year and a conference final every other year. It has regular-season games on Sundays after Sunday Night Football ends.
5️⃣ I’m stopping my predictions there, even though I haven’t gotten to the In-Season Tournament. It’s a wild card. I bet the NBA wishes it had started the tournament like five years ago so it could have a bigger pitch for it.
I don’t like the tournament on a streamer that much, because it very well could get lost and lose growth. I also haven’t divvied up the RSN games, but that could be part of the package. There could be more global rights, as well. I am not ruling out Apple, Google or Netflix, but in our 2.0 version, they are not in.
It is four entities, which is probably as far as the NBA should go.
Quick clicks
Twitter was ablaze Friday as MLB Network’s Jon Morosi reported all-time free agent Shohei Ohtani (who on Saturday agreed to a landmark $700 million deal with the Dodgers) was on a plane headed to Toronto. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale would then be the first to report Ohtani was not on his way to Toronto and was at his home in Southern California. Here’s the thing for reporters: First, you have to be right. I always remember Joel Sherman telling me early in my career: Report what you know. If you don’t know it — not just think it, or maybe know it — don’t report it.
Mistakes can happen with miscommunication and sometimes sources screw up, but report what you know. That said, reporters should not take their cues from the internet. Reporting on planes has become a thing, especially in college football, where it makes more sense with presumably fewer private planes flying between college towns as opposed in this incident from Los Angeles to Toronto. But even if Morosi were correct, he had no context for what it meant. He would have been better advised to use that information to try to find the meaning of what was going on. If it were true and he wanted to move the ball forward, he might have put himself in position to say the Blue Jays had emerged as a favorite. That would have been good context. The media has a bad name, and the only way to change that is to be consistently right. Trying to be like some account on social media that tracks flights is not the way. Morosi later apologized.
…NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport got it correct right away, but props to ESPN’s Adam Schefter for eventually getting it right. Tyler Dunne, who runs an independent site called Go Long via Substack, had a three-part series last week about Bills coach Sean McDermott, which included the crazy anecdote about how McDermott used the 9/11 terrorists as an example of teamwork. Schefter originally tweeted a screenshot about the 9/11 information with no link. Rapoport had the link in his initial tweet. Schefter did not commit a federal crime, but for an independent site to have Schefter provide a link to his 10+ million followers is worth a lot. When people pointed that out, Schefter tweeted the link, which was the right thing and a big thing to do.
…Memo to all sportscasters: No one cares about your travel schedule. All network folks are flying first-class, and a select few go private. No one wants to hear about how you call multiple games in a week. It’s not that interesting — and most people have real jobs.
Clicker Books holiday guide
If you are looking for a gift this holiday season, SportsClicker’s resident book reviewer, Papa Clicker Herb Marchand, has you covered.
Here are the top books of the year, according to Papa Clicker’s reviews, along with his ratings, out of 5 clickers.
- “Life in the G,” by Alex Squadron, 4.6.
- “The Wingmen,” by Adam Lazarus, 4.55
- “Take Back the Game,” by Linda Flanagan, 4.5
- “LeBron,” by Jeff Benedict, 4.5
- “Serving Herself,” by Ashley Brown, 4.5
- “Road to Nowhere,” by Chris Donnelly, 4.5
- “Power Players,” by Chris Cillizza, 4.45
- “Once a Giant,” by Gary Myers, 4.45
New review: “The Wingmen: The Unlikely, Unusual, Unbreakable Friendship Between John Glenn and Ted Williams,” is a new addition to the list as the last book of the year to be reviewed: Papa Clicker writes:
It is not a typical sports book, but rather a tale of two men (one a legendary baseball player and the other an astronaut and a senator) who met flying during the Korean War and developed a lasting friendship and mutual admiration through the remainder of their lives. In addition, baseball fans in particular will enjoy reading about Williams’s service to his country and his life in and outside baseball after leaving the service.
Programming note: Next Monday, we will reveal the 25 Most Powerful people in sports media for 2023. Here is last year’s edition to tide you over.
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