Questions persist about the future of the Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is cognizant that the situation isn’t close to being resolved.
However, Silver did say during an appearance at the SBJ World Congress of Sports last week that the business model has changed for both the regional sports networks and the league.
“There’s no doubt that — I’ll just say politely — we need to reimagine these relationships. There’s the specific issue in terms of Diamond with the debt they had and correcting that issue. Then in terms of the fundamentals of the business, everyone sees what’s happening in the television market. You’ve had a dramatic decline in the number of television homes. When you include the virtual distributors it’s not as low as many people think, there’s still 75 million homes receiving cable/satellite programming in the United States.”
Silver then shared that the league features a much younger audience than other professional leagues. He shared that the “numbers of the dropoff are dramatic. They’re not watching television the way an older generation was”.
The NBA Commissioner then said that the reason Diamond Sports Group was interested in launching a companion streaming platform alongside its linear television deals was to capture those younger fans who are not consuming games on cable like previous generations.
“That’s something that, as they’re trying to reimagine their business, part of it is to have a digital package to go alongside the linear package,” Silver concluded. “Those 75 million homes, even if they continue to drop down, are still going to be important for the mid-term future.”
