James Faris’ Post

I love to keep an eye on deals in business and sport. The NBA's media rights are up for grabs as the current deal ends after the 2024-25 season, with a race between traditional broadcasters and tech giants like Amazon and Apple. Despite a drop in TV viewership, the league's social media engagement and appeal to a young, tech-savvy audience keep it in the limelight. The NBA eyes a massive $7-8 billion per season deal, a substantial leap from the current $2.7 billion. While ESPN, despite its recent hurdles, could remain a significant partner, the entrance of tech giants is more likely the avenue with a potential shift towards a more digitally-driven media rights landscape. #media #deals #NBA #sportlovers #businessofsport

The NBA is about to enter its #streaming era, with a new media rights deal ushering in the league’s first streaming-exclusive games. As some of the most effective live sports programming for advertisers all year, NBA games are second only to the NFL in ad performance. And given recent NFL success with streaming-exclusive games on Amazon and Peacock, advertisers should feel confident that these new formats will drive the business results they are looking for. Major sports leagues will continue to embrace streaming services and meet consumers where they are. But make no mistake – live sports ad engagement on linear #TV is still as strong as ever. I wouldn’t expect the growth of streaming-exclusive live sports games to derail that performance any time soon. Nice recap from Lucas Manfredi in TheWrap. https://lnkd.in/eyUB83qB

The NBA is adopting a strategy that many of its teams have employed for years: going for three. Media analysts widely expect the league to select at least three distributors for its next media rights deal after the current setup expires in 2025. For the last 21 years, the NBA has had two TV partners: ESPN and TNT. The consensus among league observers is that splitting up its TV package among more partners will help the league either double or triple the size of the $24 billion media contract it signed nine years ago. Will the NBA be able to pull off that "triple-double"? Margaret Fleming and I set to find out for Insider. Here's what media analysts and other sports industry insiders say: https://lnkd.in/eHHEYFkf

Brands love sports and is one of the most powerful channels for reaching fans. We have seen the economics of the NBA/NFL see insane valuation driven by revenue numbers from their TV deals and the upcoming NBA deal is rumored to be worth $75B. Given that very few people watch live TV with the exception of sports, I see why there is such demand from the major streaming and media platforms. The question that I have is...the way that these deals work is that advertisers need to underwrite these deals to make economic sense. At what point, does investing in the NBA and NFL on TV become completely unattainable for most brands and if so...what CPM increases are brands willing to pay? https://lnkd.in/gUtM8Bsp

In what will be a landmark move in sports media history, the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Amazon Prime Video have the framework of a deal that will make the streaming service one of the main homes for the league’s games. It is expected that Prime Video’s package will include significant regular-season and postseason games, perhaps even some conference finals. ESPN/ABC, also has a framework of a deal with the expectations that an agreement will be completed. ESPN/ABC is expected to keep the NBA Finals on its networks for the duration of its deals. The advancement in the Amazon and ESPN talks leaves incumbent Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns network TNT Sports, to face off with NBC, owned by Comcast, for the likely last package of games. #streaming #nba #amazonprimevideo #espn

The NBA media deal negotiations are a fascinating insight into what the leagues are looking for in a media deal as the world continually gets more digital. Linear television and who can get the most people no longer appear to be the primary focus of these deals, especially the NBA. This article lays out why Comcast is such an important and interesting player in this battle for the final spot. Instead, the focus is now on collecting as much data on the consumer as possible. That is what streaming services provide. The NFL got tons of data from the TNF deal and will continue getting data from the wild card game on Peacock. This data is worth more than a normal person may think on the business level. Amazon and ESPN/Disney already appear to have deals in place for the next NBA media deal, so it is between WB Discovery/TNT and Comcast/NBC/Peacock. TNT is the traditional broadcaster who, while having the streaming service, does not have the financial power or the data-gathering of Comcast/NBC/Peacock. The latter, meanwhile, has a greater ability to collect data, has more money and is much more stable in terms of ownership. The results of this WB Discovery vs Comcast war will showcase where the future of sports broadcasting is heading. Keep your eyes out for what happens.

While the National Basketball Association (NBA) weighs up competing broadcast rights bids from the likes of Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon, marketers and media agencies are keeping a close watch out for a change in the media status quo surrounding the league. Many of the details concerning potential end-game scenarios, such as which weeknight fixtures go to which broadcaster, are up in the air. But agency execs believe there’ll undoubtedly be implications for the #NBA's current commercial partners, and potential opportunities for brands currently shut out from the league’s enormous audiences. In this piece by Sam Bradley, we speak to David Levy of Horizon Sports & Experiences, and Jimmy Spano of dentsu.

From the Journal: The National Basketball Association (NBA) is advancing toward a series of major #media deals, with Amazon  and Google’s YouTube vying for a new #streaming package and NBCUniversal trying to grab one of the main #TV deals held by The Walt Disney Company’s ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery’s  TNT. Interest is high in the league’s next round of packages, which kick in after the 2024-2025 season. Disney, which pays around $1.6 billion a year for TV rights, and Warner, which pays about $1.2 billion a year, are in discussions to pay substantial increases under a new pact while airing fewer games than they do now, say people familiar with the conversations. The robust pricing expected in the deals shows how valuable live #sports are to traditional media companies at a time when cord-cutting is shrinking overall TV viewership. Many households maintain cable subscriptions because it is the only way to watch their favorite teams’ games. Amazon’s Prime Video, which airs National Football League (NFL) games, has been aggressive in pursuing the streaming package and is viewed by league and media executives as the front-runner. YouTube is also in the mix, those executives say. The streaming package would give a tech giant the right to show games in markets around the world. Among traditional media companies, NBCUniversal is jostling with Disney and Warner for a package. It is angling for regular-season and playoff games to show on NBC and its Peacock streaming service, as well as rights for NBC to share the NBA Finals with Disney’s ABC, according to some people familiar with the discussions. In negotiating new long-term pacts, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said the league wants to significantly increase the scale of its rights deals and broaden the ways fans can watch games around the world. It is a strategy the NFL has also pursued, increasing rights fees from its incumbent media partners and crafting new agreements such as its deal with Amazon for “Thursday Night Football.” Amazon, YouTube and NBCUniversal have invested in sports to boost their respective streaming services. Retaining NBA rights is a high priority for both Disney and Warner. “What is the alternative programming you would replace those prime-time hours with,” Most scripted shows fail, and the cost to market them isn’t cheap, he added. With sports, there is a “built-in fan base and you know pretty closely how the games are going to rate,” he said. Securing the rights could help Disney and Warner with their respective streaming initiatives. Warner and Disney are joining with Fox Corporation on a new sports-centric streaming service set to launch in the late summer or early fall. Having a big chunk of NBA regular and postseason action is expected to be a major selling point for the as-yet unnamed platform.

The new NBA media rights deal could generate $6B a year. The league has reportedly agreed to a deal framework put forward by Walt Disney and Amazon. A third package is still up for negotiation and talks are ongoing with Warner Bros Discovery and Comcast.  It would be 3x larger than the previous rights deal at a value of $76B over 11 years. The NBA are using a similar strategy to the NFL, splitting its rights into more packages to maximize returns. The league also wants to reach as many people as possible, with the audience for cable networks contracting. So partnering with streaming providers is a smart move. However, industry experts have questioned whether the NBA may be seeking too much for its TV rights given that the audience for the finals declined YoY. The league’s current media deals are worth a total of $24B totalling around $2.6B a year. But sports are the biggest draw for major networks, making them must-have programming. No doubt a deal of this size will create a knock on affect across sports. 👉 Follow me for more sports business content! #sports #sportsbiz #linkedinsports