This coming from the Wall Street Journal today (behind the dreaded paywall). The NBA is looking to double its current rights fees from partners ESPN and Turner Sports. Combined, they pay $930 million annually. ESPN/ABC airs 75 regular season games and 25 postseason contests including the Finals. TNT airs 52 regular season games and another 52 playoff games. And Turner runs NBA TV for the league.
So as we enter the last two years of an eight-year contract, details are leaking out about the new deal which is being negotiated with the current television partners. It’s no secret that both ESPN and Turner covet the NBA contract and the number of games they carry. Since the 2002-03 season, ESPN/ABC has aired regular season games on Wednesday and Friday nights along with selected Sunday afternoons. Turner has aired games since 1984 either on TBS or TNT and has been a loyal partner.
The Finals have been exclusively aired on ABC since 2003 and ESPN would love to keep the series possibly even moving them to cable in the next contract. Turner also wants in. The Wall Street Journal reports the NBA is thinking about dividing the Finals between the ESPN and Turner either giving them both access in one series or alternating between the two every other year.
“In a twist, the NBA may look to split up the NBA Finals between the two media companies, so that the championship round games would air on channels belonging to both, the people familiar with the matter said. That could take various forms: The networks could alternate Finals coverage each year, or carve up the Finals—played as the best-of-seven—in a given year.
“Currently, the Finals air entirely on Disney’s ABC broadcast network, but Turner is pushing to get a piece of the coverage, the people said. Disney wants to maintain sole rights to the Finals, and the NBA can’t offer up those rights to anyone else in the short term without Disney’s consent, one person familiar with the matter said. The league could only do so if it fails to reach a new deal with Disney, a process that could stretch well into next year, the person said.
“Getting coverage of even part of the highly viewed NBA Finals would be a significant boost for Turner, which airs NBA games on its TNT channel and whose channels also include TBS, CNN and truTV, giving it additional leverage in future carriage-fee negotiations with pay-TV operators. The change would continue a trend of major sporting events moving from broadcast to cable. Turner, for example, this year aired the “Final Four” of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament for the first time.”
To get a piece of the Finals would be the Pièce de Résistance for Turner and the culmination of a more than 30-year relationship with the Association. However, ESPN would not allow the Finals to go without a fight. But it’s all up to league commissioner Adam Silver who will have the final say.
And as ESPN and Turner are in exclusive negotiating windows, nothing can be changed until both lapse. But if both companies balk at the NBA’s asking price, they know that Fox will be waiting to jump and go all-in to get a piece of the Association. The Big Lead reported earlier this year that Fox Sports 1 was set to enter the NBA fray with a Saturday night game when the new TV contract is finalized, but that has not been confirmed.
The main thing for the networks is to keep what content they have and possibly expand on them. ESPN may have to lose exclusive access to the Finals and pay more. Turner may have to pay more to get the Finals, but if they can pass that along to the cable and satellite providers and eventually to you the viewer, it will have been worth shelling out the extra cash.
And if the incumbents choose to dash, the NBA knows it has eligible suitors in Fox and even NBC to jump in at a moment’s notice.
The winner in all of this will be the NBA as it is sitting a position of strength as it can play networks off one another. By this time next year, we should know who will be airing the Association well into the next decade. It will be interesting to see who wins and who loses in the bidding for the last major US sports media rights deal until 2021.
