The NBA recently announced its forthcoming media rights partnerships under new, 11-year contracts with The Walt Disney Company (ESPN/ABC), NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock) and Amazon (Prime Video) that are reportedly worth a collective $77 billion. Among the media companies, Disney is the only incumbent within this deal, maintaining its relationship with the league that dates back to 2002.
As an existing rightsholder, Disney had the ability to discuss a new deal with the league under the auspices of an exclusive negotiating window, which began in early March. During that time, the discussions between both parties took place with regular discussion between Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN; Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA; and Bill Koenig, president of global content and media distribution at the NBA.
During a recent episode of The Varsity podcast with John Ourand of Puck News, Pitaro outlined how the process unfolded between the media conglomerate and league itself. In fact, he shared that he is regularly at the table sitting with commissioners and attending meetings amid media rights negotiations. From his time working at Yahoo Sports as its head of media, he developed relationships with Silver and Koenig. Over the years, Disney and the NBA have built mutual trust that played a factor during these negotiations. Internal discussions at ESPN and The Walt Disney Company surrounding the deal picked up a few years ago, according to Pitaro, and both the company and league worked very hard within the exclusive negotiating window.
“There were meetings in Burbank with Bob Iger, and we made it a huge priority at The Walt Disney Company to get this thing done,” Pitaro said. “But you said it, you’re right that this didn’t exactly close within that exclusive negotiating window, but I think we reached a handshake agreement very, very soon thereafter, and so it was not easy. I don’t think anyone on the NBA side or on our side will tell you that it was easy.”
Pitaro explained that there were many moving pieces in the deals and that both sides had their respective priorities. One thing that never waned, however, was the factors of trust and respect. The discussions between the parties were always civil, he explained, and he affirmed with certainty that “it never got ugly.”
Under the terms of the new contract, Disney will distribute 80 regular-season NBA games per year, which includes more than 20 games on ABC and up to 60 games on ESPN. The company will continue serving as the exclusive home of the NBA Finals and will televise the Conference Finals for 10 of the 11 years under the deal. Additionally, the company has international rights for its games and rights for its Flagship direct-to-consumer platform set to launch next year.
“I don’t want to speak for the league, but we feel really, really good about the partnership,” Pitaro said. “If you look at the value of our deal, we made it very clear from the outset that the postseason was very important to us, especially the NBA Finals, and we told Adam and Bill that maintaining exclusivity for the full 11 years on NBA Finals was very, very important. To their credit, they got that, and they worked with us on that.”
In addition to the live game broadcasts, Disney secured the rights for a live whiparound-style program surrounding its games. Pitaro lauded NBCUniversal for its coverage of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 and specifically noticed what the company did with its Gold Zone whiparound show. ESPN has ventured in the space before, most recently with its Frozen Frenzy presentation during the NHL season that will make a return in the upcoming year. The company now has the ability to introduce a similar offering for NBA coverage; however, the exact parameters and alignment of such has yet to be determined.
“There seems to be significant appetite from a sports fan perspective for that type of experience,” Pitaro explained, “and so the fact that we were able to secure those rights as a part of this NBA deal makes me feel even more confident that that’s going to work for us.”
Internal discussions surrounding star players aging in the NBA took place, but Pitaro does not foresee LeBron James, Stephen Curry or Kevin Durant retiring any time soon. The company concluded that it has “a high degree of confidence” in the next generation of players within the league. Furthermore, Pitaro elucidated that Disney likes the parity within the league and the fact that several teams can win.
“Look, probably most important, we love the demos. We love the demos around the NBA,” Pitaro said. “If you look at the audience, it’s young. It may be out of NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL – the NBA may have the youngest audience. I believe the last I heard from our research department, they did have the youngest audience. I don’t know where that is exactly today, but we like that about this deal and this partnership, and like I said, we love the package that we got and the value that we got here.”
