The NBA is going to be entering a new media rights contract at the start of the 2024-25 season, and Andrew Marchand and John Ourand have an idea of who the league will be partnering with.
In the latest installment of The Marchand and Ourand Sports Media Podcast, the duo gave their predictions for what the NBA’s next media rights deal will look like.
To Marchand, it doesn’t seem likely that Warner Bros. Discovery and ESPN will lose out on rights.
“I’d say right now Tuesdays belong to (Warner Bros. Discovery) during the regular season,” he said. “Thursday belongs to Amazon after the NFL ends. Then ESPN has the biggest package still with the NBA Finals. Then they don’t do Wednesdays anymore, as they try to get more marquee games.”
Marchand’s wild card prediction for the new contract was that the league would welcome back NBC into the fray. In his opinion, the league needs to add another broadcast TV partner in order to justify the rights fee increase.
“I think they’re gonna need, if they want to get to the money they want, they’re gonna need four entities,” he said. “And so I have NBC getting in there. I think Adam Silver and the NBA are nostalgic with NBC.”
Ourand agreed with Marchand on WBD and ESPN remaining partnered. In terms of the NBA bringing in a streaming partner, he feels like Amazon is going to be that partner. He thinks the streaming giant will take a similar approach that they’ve taken with the NFL and their Thursday night package, where Amazon will work out a deal with one of the networks to lend out broadcast crews.
“Look for Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery to get together so they can share production, perhaps even share talent in some cases,” Ourand said.
Ourand liked the idea of NBC getting in again, but he thinks Disney is going to do everything possible to prevent split rights to the NBA Finals.
“ESPN really wants to keep the Finals,” Ourand said. “The idea of doing alternate finals with NBC is something that they don’t want to have.”
“I think ESPN is going to pay up enough in order to control all aspects of the Finals and one of the conference finals,” he added. “I think NBC’s gonna make a big run for it, but I think they’re gonna be boxed out for it by ESPN.”
In terms of ranking potential NBA streaming partners from worst chance to best, Ourand put Netflix at the bottom, followed by Apple. John said not to sleep on Google/YouTube.
“They love their Sunday Ticket deal,” he said. “They’re starting to get addicted to sports in the same way that legacy media companies have been. I think they’re somebody just to keep an eye on.”
