NBA ‘nears $76 billion media rights deal with ESPN, Amazon and NBC’

The NBA is reportedly on the verge of more than doubling its annual media rights fees, but it may come at a higher cost to basketball fans. 

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the NBA is nearing an 11-year pact with NBC, ESPN and Amazon that would net the league around $76 billion.

Such an agreement would leave TNT without NBA rights for the first time since 1988, but parent company CEO David Zaslav says Warner Bros. Discovery has the right to match either NBC’s or Amazon’s offer. What’s more, Front Office Sports reported Thursday morning that Zaslav is actively negotiating a fourth media-rights package with the league in a last-minute effort to preserve its foothold in the NBA universe.

That should come as good news to diehard basketball fans, many of whom watch Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal on TNT’s popular studio show, Inside The NBA. Both the network and league have faced criticism over the show’s uncertain future.

But that negative feedback could be dwarfed by fan outrage over the league’s growing reliance on streaming services. Basketball enthusiasts already paying for cable or NBA League Pass could soon be asked to pay subscription fees for NBC’s Peacock, Amazon Prime, or a new platform from ESPN, Fox Sports and Warner that is currently under development.

And it’s those subscription fees that are at the heart of the ongoing negotiations.

The NBA has actually seen a slight decrease in viewership in recent years and is currently dwarfed by the rival NFL’s Nielsen ratings.

Yet, with lucrative streaming service subscription fees in play, ESPN/Disney reportedly increased its offer to $2.5 billon annually, while NBC and Amazon are willing to spend $2.5 billion and $1.8 billion per year, respectively.

Half of the roughly 100 games NBC is expected to air will be seen exclusively on Peacock, according to the Journal.

And fans may not get any relief in the playoffs, where Amazon Prime is expected to air some postseason games as well as the new NBA in-season tournament.

Another factor buoying the value of NBA media rights is the WNBA.

The NBA’s sister league is now drawing record audiences following the arrivals of rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, and it is believed that any media contract would include WNBA rights.

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The risk for the league is jeopardizing its current viewership for a chance at higher fees. 

‘Every time you increase the number of platforms then viewers have to make decision,’ Dennis Deninger, a 25-year veteran of ESPN and current sports media professor at Syracuse University, told DailyMail.com. 

‘Do they subscribe or not subscribe? I think there are a few hurdles in front of fans in terms of getting what they want to watch. And you’ll never get 100 percent of those people moving to the new platforms. What [the networks and streamers are] hoping is that younger viewers and consumers will make up the difference.’

And to streamers like Amazon, the value of NBA media rights may go beyond viewership. 

With a $1.3 trillion market cap, Amazon already ranks among the biggest companies in the world, thanks to its varied revenue streams. And by partnering with the NBA, Amazon could see opportunities to sell other products and services to basketball fans. 

‘They’ve got the money to invest in the future,’ said Deninger, author of the upcoming book, The Football Game That Changed America. ‘Maybe they show a loss to begin with but it’s what they want to be associated with.’