The National Basketball Association is in its penultimate season of media rights deals with The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery, and various reports have affirmed that the league is looking to ink its next deal with broadcast, cable and digital components. The league, led by Commissioner Adam Silver, and its two existing rightsholders have the ability to enter an exclusive 45-day window negotiating period on March 9, 2024. There are other bidders interested as well, which reportedly include Amazon Prime Video, Apple and NBC Sports among others, and there seems to be a collective understanding of the burgeoning reach and growth potential of the Association.
Concurrent with these media rights deals is expansion, a topic that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was asked about during an interview with Eddie Johnson and Justin Termine on SiriusXM NBA Radio on Tuesday night. With the Oakland Athletics decision to move the franchise to Las Vegas, Nev., the market has been speculated as being a potential landing spot for an NBA team.
The Las Vegas Aces of the WNBA won their second-consecutive league championship over the summer, preceded by a Stanley Cup victory by the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights. Although Silver divulged that players, former players and well-known wealthy people have expressed interest in having the franchise, he shared that there are no “inside candidates.” He is thrilled about the interest, but knows that in order to move forward, it is incumbent on the league to ink a new media rights deal.
“The reason we wanted to get those deals done, no secret, is we want to have a better understanding of what the economics would be going forward,” Adam Silver said. “So that to the extent, if you have 30 teams; if you’re dividing up your national or international television money by 30 teams, that’s one check that you’re writing the teams. If it’s by – let’s say we expand by two teams [to] 32 teams – that’s a different one.”
Silver recognizes the importance of media revenue and how it impacts the operations of the league and its member teams. At the conclusion of the season, the league will be receiving regional rights back from Diamond Sports Group, part of a term sheet within the cooperation agreement. Yet the regional sports network is facing motions to compel filed by both its parent company, Sinclair, along with Major League Baseball, which are set to be deliberated in a hearing on Dec. 15. While the future of the local rights remains unknown at the moment, Silver wants to have an idea of what the economics within the league would look like going forward before considering these plans.
“We’ll see what the timing is on those national television agreements,” Silver added. “You know, we don’t have to wait till the end of the second season to get those done, but once we do, we’ll turn back to expansion, or turn to expansion.”
The league is in the midst of its first In-Season Tournament, which concludes this week in Las Vegas, Nev. featuring a semifinals doubleheader Thursday night on ESPN and TNT, and the championship game on ABC on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. EST/5:30 p.m. PST. During group play – which took place on Tuesdays and Fridays throughout the month of November – ESPN and TNT had various nationally-televised windows that averaged 1.5 million viewers, up 26% from the comparable window last season. Silver acknowledged that the tournament has been going well and seems to be resonating with fans, but he does not want to jump to any conclusions before its completion.
“I mean, when we first started this people said, ‘What are you going to be looking for to decide whether it’s something that you’ll think will be successful and you’ll want to move forward?,’” Silver reminisced. “And I said, ‘Most importantly, let’s look to the competitiveness of the players; the enthusiasm on the floor; the buy-in, and we’re getting that in spades.”
Termine asked Silver about expanding the NBA Draft to two days, something that the Commissioner confirmed that the league is working on with ESPN/ABC, the broadcast home of the event, along with the NBA Players Association. There remains interest in the players that are being drafted and Silver believes that both rounds deserve to be broadcast in prime time, but he wants to ensure things are worked out with partners and thinks they will get to that point. He went on to call the decision a “no-brainer” because of the interest and how it can guide more comprehensive coverage.
“There’s so much interest in these players,” Silver said. “The other advantage to moving the second round to a separate night just gives more time for the announcers like you guys – the media – to have a better understanding of who those players are. A little bit more time between picks to talk about who they are and why they make sense for those teams.”
There have been several star NBA players who have been selected in the second round of the event in recent years, including Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić and Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green. Various second-round prospects from this year’s draft, such as Toumani Camara and Andre Jackson Jr., have already made an impact on their respective teams. Rather than these selections being announced after midnight on the east coast, Silver postulates the value another day would bring to the sport.
“I’m hoping to get there actually for this season – for this June – and move the second round to its own night,” Silver said.
