There is no end in sight for the standoff between Disney and Charter and the biggest loser in all of it, according to Ben Thompson, just might be the NBA.
The renowned media analyst joined Bill Simmons this week on Simmons’s podcast and explained that while fans may be angry, the NBA should be legitimately worried. Charter’s stance that it can live without ESPN represents a major shift in the media business.
“[The NBA’s] whole bit about being able to triple the rights deal and extract all this money from ESPN, it’s dependent on ESPN being able to extract money from the cable carriers,” Thompson said. “And if the cable carriers say no, where’s the money gonna come from?”
Many cable companies across the country are getting out of the television business to focus on internet service. That means sports, which until very recently was seen as having tremendous value to TV providers, now becomes less important.
“The NBA is in a bad spot that it did not get this deal done before this happened,” Thompson said.
Disney wants to take ESPN directly to consumers as a streaming product. Thompson told Simmons that it may be a more logical way to run a television business in 2023 and beyond, but the network will be playing to a much smaller customer base. That will also have lasting effects.
As rights come up for renewal in the next three-to-five years, ESPN and Disney will not be able to be a serious player for all of the properties they once were.
“It just takes time to build that revenue to make up for revenue that they’re losing. And the last thing you can afford at that time is having to pay out billions and billions of dollars on a rights deal,” he said.
