A Historic New TV Deal May Change The NBA Landscape
ESPN and TNT remain the lead coverage networks of the NBA for another nine years, with a huge deal with the league. So for those hoping that NBA on NBC would return, you might have to wait until 2025.
The New York Times reports the deal’s value is over $2.5 billion per year. TNT has been covering the NBA since 1988 while ESPN’s television relationship with the NBA began in 2002, when the network won the rights from NBC. This deal puts the NBA in second place behind the NFL in annual United States National TV Rights out of the four major sports. The NFL is at $6.45 Billion, NBA at $2.6 billion, MLB at $1.5 billion. The NBA has the highest increase of the 4 major sports with their new TV deal at a 186% increase, behind the NBA is the NHL with an increase of 167%.
The announcement was made by NBA commissioner Adam Silver and ESPN president John Skipper. The deal starts with the 2016-17 season and increases just about all of ESPN’s NBA coverage including television, digital, highlights, data, audio and international NBA rights. Games will continue to air on ESPN and TNT through the 2024-25 season.
ABC will remain the feature station for the Finals throughout the length of the deal. ESPN and ABC will combine to feature 44 postseason games as well as conference finals while ESPN will continue to air the draft lottery, draft combine and draft itself. TNT will still feature Thursday games as well as All-Star Weekend coverage.
A few highlights of the deal, from ESPN.com.
Highlights of the enhanced rights in the deal:
• An established framework for ESPN and the league to negotiate the launch of a new “over-the-top” content offering on the mobile platform. Details will be announced at a later date;
• 10 additional regular-season games for ESPN or ABC, bringing the regular-season total to 100;
• 10 more exclusive regular-season windows;
• Increased team appearances to showcase the most popular teams and most compelling matchups more times throughout the season;
• Live, national rights to summer league and D-League games across ESPN entities;
• As part of the new agreement, ESPN will substantially increase its NBA-focused programming with 750 new hours of NBA content on linear and digital platforms for a significant year-round presence for the league on ESPN;
• ESPN International, in Latin America, the Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand, will carry significantly more exclusive regular-season and playoff games on ESPN platforms, including expanded weekend windows during the regular season, increased first- and second-round playoff coverage, and the NBA conference finals and NBA Finals (including exclusivity in Australia and New Zealand.
Also, ESPN announced a multiyear extension for WNBA rights through 2025, which will include increased in-progress highlights on linear and digital platforms.
Turner Sports will add 12 games to its regular-season schedule. Turner will continue with Thursday night doubleheaders, the opening night games and the All-Star Game. Turner also received additional multimedia rights.
This new deal puts a different look at how contracts will be dealt with. This deal makes a max-contract for Gordon Hayward look like a small splash in the bucket, with the Utah Jazz, a small market team. Mid-Level Exceptions, rookie contracts and max contracts will all be affected and a guy like LeBron James, who signed a two-year deal with the Cavs in preparation for this huge deal, now looks like a genius. He played it smart and now that this deal is in place, expect a lot of other players to do the same.
