Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) attempts a basket in front of Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) within the second half during game three of the 2022 NBA Finals at TD Garden.
Kyle Terada | USA Today Sports
Cue up John Tesh’s “Roundball Rock” – “The NBA on NBC” could also be returning, if NBC Sports gets its way.
Comcast‘s NBCUniversal is preparing to make a powerful bid to win back National Basketball Association broadcast rights greater than 20 years after the corporate lost them to Disney and Turner Sports, in response to people accustomed to the matter.
NBCUniversal executives have informed the NBA of their interest, said the people, who asked to not be named since the discussions are private. NBC Sports wants a package that might include playoff games to air on NBC’s broadcast network, two of the people said. Some regular season games could possibly be exclusive to NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock. The NBA could also resolve to force media corporations to simulcast all games on streaming to extend reach, the people said.
Apple and Amazon have also expressed interest to the NBA in buying carved-out streaming packages, said people accustomed to the matter. Amazon currently has a cope with the NBA allowing it to stream games in Brazil.
No formal discussions can happen with non-incumbent bidders unless Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns Turner Sports, and Disney comply with waive their exclusive negotiation windows, which end in April 2024, in response to people accustomed to the matter. Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery own the NBA rights until the tip of the 2024-2025 season — greater than two more years from now. It’s possible the NBA could simply re-up with each existing parties and never open negotiations to outside bidders. That is what happened in 2014, the league’s most up-to-date renewal.
But that is not prone to occur this time as streaming has taken over because the dominant distribution approach to TV watching, the people said. The NBA is prone to carve out one or two latest packages for bidders, pushing their media rights partners from two to either three or 4, two of the people said.
Disney is anticipated to bid on a package of rights for ESPN, ESPN+ and ABC, said the people.
Charles Barkley on Contained in the NBA
Source: NBA on TNT
Warner Bros. Discovery’s interest within the NBA is murkier. CEO David Zaslav said in November, “We do not have to have the NBA.” Turner’s relationship with the league features the long-running “Contained in the NBA” studio show, hosted by Ernie Johnson and former NBA stars Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal. Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery sports head Luis Silberwasser will likely use this 12 months to make a decision what variety of future relationship they need with the NBA, in response to an individual accustomed to their pondering.
“We all know NBA programming has tremendous value and expect there to be significant interest in our media rights from each existing and prospective partners,” said an NBA spokesperson.
Spokespeople for NBCUniversal, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon declined to comment. A spokesperson at Apple couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
NBC’s NBA pitch
It’s possible NBCUniversal shall be directly competing with Warner Bros. Discovery to be the league’s second traditional TV partner, together with ESPN. NBCUniversal can offer a broadcast network (NBC) to air NBA games if pay TV providers begin dropping cable networks, comparable to TNT and TBS, that run mostly reruns of scripted programming when sports aren’t on. Comcast also owns Sky, which could give the NBA one other international broadcast outlet.
“What you’ve today is programmers selling us content at increasingly higher prices and asking us to distribute that to largely all of our customers, and at the identical time, selling that very same content either into streaming platforms or making a direct-to-consumer product themselves at a much lower cost,” said Chris Winfrey, CEO of Charter, the second largest U.S. cable provider, in comments published by CNBC last week. “Our willingness to proceed to fund that for programmers when that content is on the market without spending a dime elsewhere is declining. Which means throughout the linear video construct, you will see an increasing variety of distributors deciding it now not is smart to hold certain content.”
Warner Bros. Discovery can counter with a bigger global streaming service — the combined HBO Max/Discovery+ (prone to be called Max) — which launches later this 12 months. Warner Bros. Discovery ended September with about 95 million streaming subscribers, far outpacing Peacock’s 20 million, that are U.S.-only. The NBA has been partners with Turner Sports for nearly 40 years.
Michael Jordan #23 and Scottie Pippen #33
Nathaniel S. Butler
Many NBA fans fondly remember “The NBA on NBC” for its dramatic “Roundball Rock” theme song and era-defining broadcasts of the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls winning six titles in the course of the Nineteen Nineties. NBC aired its last NBA games in the course of the 2002 finals, when the Los Angeles Lakers swept the Latest Jersey Nets. Games have been split between Disney’s ESPN and ABC and Turner Sports’ TNT and TBS for the last twenty years. ABC airs the NBA Finals.
The NBA’s value
The NBA offers live programming that is priceless to advertisers and routinely commands hundreds of thousands of viewers. Regular season NBA games across ABC, ESPN and TNT are averaging 1.6 million viewers this season. That is flat from a 12 months ago, at the same time as the full variety of U.S. homes that subscribe to cable TV has fallen from 70 million to 62 million, in response to NBA data.
NBA rights are coming up for renewal while global media corporations are cutting costs, which could pressure the the league to lower its expectations on the dimensions of a price increase. Warner Bros. Discovery laid off 1000’s of employees and cut billions in content costs last 12 months. Disney announced last week it plans to eliminate 7,000 jobs and cut $5.5 billion in costs, including $3 billion in non-sports content savings. The NFL obtained 40% to 80% increases for its media rights when it renewed its deal for 11 years in 2021.
It’s too early to say how much the NBA will find a way to extend revenue from its latest TV deal, but initial suggestions of a 200% increase from about $25 billion to greater than $70 billion over nine years are probably too optimistic, in response to people accustomed to the matter. An annual increase closer to 100% could also be more likely, given secular declines within the linear pay TV and streaming businesses which are still losing billions of dollars annually, two of the people said.
WATCH: CNBC’s full interview with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is CNBC’s parent company.
