The conference finals and
In fact, both have been trumped by the drama surrounding where fans will be able to watch games for at least the next decade.
The NBA media rights negotiations for deals beginning with the 2025-26 season are well into the fourth quarter, but trying to assess how the final packages will look is difficult. Commissioner
The only certainties at the moment is that
Turner has had an NBA package since 1984 and league games have been on TNT since the network launched in 1989.
What exactly is in those matching rights, along with the public angst expressed by
“I don’t know if this is anymore complicated than any other rights deal. It certainly seems to be very public, so I think that’s probably what surprises some people,” said
And very rarely does
Many saw that as a sign that the NBA and
While the popular theme song from NBC’s 1990 to 2002 run with the NBA — still considered by many to be one of basketball’s unofficial anthems — will make a return, fans will be able to hear it during the network's coverage of the Paris Olympics.
The league’s current nine-year agreement, which runs through the 2024-25 season, was finalized in 2014. It brings in an average of
The new media rights deal, also expected to be long term, will average at least
“The NBA has an idea of what it wants its content partners to be. But the backend rights make that hard for them to do," said Patrick Crakes, a media consultant and former Fox Sports executive.
Silver said during a
“Growing the sport will involve more than getting a high rights fee. It’ll have a lot to do with how the game of basketball is presented to our fans globally,” he said. “As we’re talking to our current partners and seeing what’s available in the marketplace, is what some of these media companies will be able to do with NBA and
The amount of regular-season inventory, as well as the popularity of the first year of the In-Season Tournament, would be beneficial for Amazon Prime Video and/or Peacock.
Regular-season games on
Amazon had success growing its market for its NFL “Thursday Night Football” package last season, as more fans made it a part of their viewing habits. Amazon also added
“Sports has always been one of the tried and true ways to attract people to your platform. You see the number of people who have stuck (around) on Peacock after the (NFL) playoff game,” Thompson said.
Amazon will also factor into local team rights, should
The doubling of national rights fees should also take some of the pain away with the days of local networks paying exorbitant local fees likely at an end after the bursting of the regional sports network bubble.
The addition of
The NBA could also steal a page from the NFL and retain some of its inventory — such as
The “League Pass” package of out-of-market games could also go from Turner to a streaming company for the right value. That was part of ESPN’s agreement with the
Fox,
Nothing is set, though, until the NBA comes to Turner with a proposed package to either match or potentially carve out one of its own.
“These rights are very, very powerful in the context of back-end rights. And the NBA is moving very carefully because I think they recognize that," Crakes said. "So it’s gone very slow. They don’t need to be necessarily in a hurry at the moment."
Players and owners, however, would like to have some sense of the league's future economic outlook before
Trying to negotiate long-term deals also comes amidst a shifting media marketplace.
When the final shot goes in, Crakes predicts the NBA will end up going down a path it didn't want or quite envision when negotiations started. That would include Turner landing some version of a package so that it can continue charging its current subscriber fees to cable and satellite companies.
“It always comes back to this slow, methodical means that the NBA is going to try to find a way to have four partners,” he said.
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