Rumored $76B NBA TV deal is full of streaming options. Will prices go up?

Simone Del Rosario: If you watched basketball in the 90s, you know that tune. It’s NBA on NBC, and it could be back after more than two decades. 

After months of negotiations, the NBA is close to finalizing a $76 billion deal for 11 years of broadcast rights, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. 

Here’s how it shakes out. 

NBC would pay about $2.5 billion a year to show roughly 100 games per season. Half of those would be Peacock exclusives. NBC hasn’t broadcast an NBA game since 2002.

Amazon would pay $1.8 billion a year to get in on the action with regular season and playoff games. 

Meanwhile, ABC and ESPN owner Disney will pay $2.6 billion a year, nearly twice the $1.5 billion they currently pay for ESPN’s portion of the rights. 

The Journal says they get fewer games for the premium price, but the new deal allows ESPN to have games on its new direct-to-consumer streaming service which launches in 2025. ESPN will still maintain rights to the NBA finals. 

Are you sensing a theme here? Every slice has streaming.

And it also leaves current NBA partner TNT out of the mix… 

Parent company Warner Bros. could still come to the table and outbid, but is also facing more than $40 billion in debt. 

For his part, Warner CEO David Zaslav has said they don’t need the NBA, and they may be in a position to find out how true that is. 

But is it really an NBA broadcast without these four in the studio? 

Joining me now to dig into all of this is Bob Thompson, former president of Fox Sports Network. Bob, for you, what would you say is the biggest headline maker of this reported deal?

Bob Thompson: I guess for me, would be the fact that it looks like Warner Brothers discovery may be out after roughly 40 years with the NBA.

Simone Del Rosario: You’ve been part of these negotiations like this before? Is there any chance that there’s an 11th hour deal? Obviously, this deal is just reported by The Wall Street Journal at this point. Do you think that Warner Brothers is trying something?

Bob Thompson: Well, my guess is the Warner Brothers is probably waiting to see what the other deals look like. And I’m sure that the NBA is going to make sure those are all buttoned up from a legal standpoint before they give them to Warner Brothers discovery, who may who has a right to match some form of a package that for the form of that package is the great unknown. It seems as though the Warner Brothers discovery package from the past is kind of being split up between Amazon and NBC, and so do they have the right to match one, both, or none of them? That is the big question. So I think that, I mean, I’d be very surprised if the commissioner comes out and announces anything during the NBA Playoffs, the championship round, which starts tonight. They just tend not to want to overshadow the games with business. And so my guess is we’ve still got another week to 10 days before they even start talking about who’s getting what and finalizing the actual deal.

Simone Del Rosario: What about the sticker price for you? $76 billion did you expect that’s in line with what this kind of rights deal could command?

Bob Thompson: You know, there’s but that could go either way. I really could. So, yeah, I didn’t think it was gonna be quite that big. I thought, you know, maybe they get above six six a year, and it looks like it’s gonna be closer to seven. I you know, it just shows how valuable prime real estate is in the sports world, and especially when you had two companies, Amazon Prime and NBC on the outside, wanting to get in, and then you combine that with the fact that ESPN obviously wanted to maintain their position, maintain the finals for ABC, have enough content for their purported direct to consumer offering of ESPN, the main channel that’s Coming up next year. So all those things kind of combined to raise that number to a really astounding number for the NBA, and congratulations to Adam Silver and Bill Koenig if they get it.

Simone Del Rosario: Over at NBC, there’s word of a divide over whether this is a good investment. Do you think that this is just the price to pay for having to boost streaming subscriptions, like you talked about, that’s an element of every part of this package.

Bob Thompson: Yeah, I think that’s part of the price to pay. It also provides NBC with Prime Time content. They don’t have to go out and develop inner, you know, entertainment programming, it just, you know, just drops right in there. You get a certain cost. It’s not a hit and miss, like you go through with the pilot season. And on the streaming side, you know, for Peacock, one thing that NBC has shown that if you buy specific content, in their case, it was NFL games. It can be very helpful in driving subscriptions to peacock that at this point seem to have stuck around, even though the NFL season ended, you know, several months ago. 

Simone Del Rosario: I mean, peacock is the most affordable option out there. I know that they’re hoping probably to raise prices with the money that they’re investing into it. I’m wondering if this, the price that these sports deals are commanding are pretty astronomical. I’m wondering if this is saying that this creative content that streamers are developing, that that’s just not enough to get subscriptions, and now we’re going to see this huge push into live sports.

Bob Thompson: Yeah, I can see that. I think that what they’re probably thinking is that, you know, so much of the entertainment aspect and scripted dramas, things like that, have already moved off network television over to the streamers. They probably feel they’ve captured that, you know, that subset pretty well. And so the next great leap is, how do you get the people who are still in the original cable bundle or whatever, to get over to the streaming side as well? In many cases, the reason they’re still in the cable bundle is because they want the sports. So as the sports migrates over, you know, people are going to have to say, okay, you know, more and more games are on these. Streaming services, you know, maybe I’m going to have to jump up from one or two to three or four streaming services. One thing I can tell you, though you know, they’re going to have to grow into these rights fees and the prices, and that means the fees for these streaming services are going to continue to go up. If you know, it’s like your cable bill used to increase every year. Your streaming service bills are going to increase every year as well. 

Simone Del Rosario: If you were in charge at NBC or Amazon, and let’s say that Warner is out for good on this, would you encourage those networks to make a play for the inside the NBA crew?

Bob Thompson: Well, yeah, absolutely. I think you know, that is really kind of a insignia show for the NBA. And, you know, the town is great. They have a great chemistry. I don’t know if you’re going to be able to get them all to come over, but certainly, you know, Charles Barkley is the ringleader, so to speak. And I think he could probably convince some people to come along with them. I believe it will be, you know, a sought after product, or certainly sought after individuals. I would probably give NBC the leg out, because they’re going to end up having Sunday night NBA once the NFL Sunday, Sunday night games are over. And I think that’s a, you know, it’s a very marquee position for for the folks on that show. 

Simone Del Rosario: You already said that you were a bit surprised to the upside. As far as the sticker price on this reported deal, what about the ripple effect that this deal is going to have on other leagues? We know the NFL is able to pull the plug early on its contract in 2029 that’s four years early. Do you think this is like that nail in the coffin that says the NFL is definitely going to do that and secure much higher prices?

Bob Thompson: It would not surprise me at all if they open the contract up in a few years. I think it gives them the advantage of kind of jumping ahead of all the college rights deals that come up in the early 2030s the CFP deal will be coming up again as well. So I think that it would behoove the NFL to kind of get their hand in people’s pockets before others do the other thing you have to keep in mind is, you know, for other properties, Warner Brothers discovery has got a couple billion dollars in their pocket that they’re probably, you know, may not be spending on the on the NBA. So you kind of wonder what they might go shopping after, you know, maybe they go shopping after CBS. If this whole Paramount deal comes down and the folks said sky dancing and Redbird decide they don’t want to own the broadcast network. 

Simone Del Rosario: That’s a really good point. We’ll leave it there. Bob Thompson, former president of Fox Sports Network. Thank you so much.

Bob Thompson: Thank you.