NBA Close To Signing Longest (Most Lucrative) TV Deal Ever
Monday, June 04, 2007
Via Industry Sources, Sports Business Daily is reporting that the NBA has agreed to keep the league in TNT and ESPN/ABC's hands. The deal is expected to be for 8 years, and include multiple digital media privledges (none of which will provide live games, so I'm not interested).
The deals are not completed, but multiple executives close to the talks confirmed that the partners have zeroed in on the framework of a comprehensive deal that has been in the works for the better part of a year. At eight years, the agreement would mark the longest television contract the NBA has ever signed.The current deal with ESPN/ABC and Turner expires at the end of next season, spanning six years. The league’s previous two television deals with NBC were for four years.No other networks are even close to challenging, so it looks like we're stuck with these two players for the long haul. The deal will obviously be more than the last one, which will put it at over a $765 Million average anually.
NBA near deal with TV partners (Sports Business Daily)
6 Comments:
Wish the TNT crew would get all the games. Charles/Ernie/Kenny are more entertaining than the basketball.
since this is nba simmons goes here.
While we're here, my ESPN colleague Colin Cowherd mocked my seven trade scenarios for Kobe on the radio last week without reading the entire column or even attempting to understand its premise, namely, that the trade options for Kobe were limited because (A) he needed to go to a big market for a team that could contend right away, and (B) nobody pays 100 cents on the dollar for a team looking to unload an unhappy superstar. And if that wasn't bad enough, Cowherd embarrassed himself by not understanding basic NBA trading principles like "it would be valuable for L.A. to swap Vlad Radmanovic's contract for Bobby Sura's expiring contract in a T-Mac/Kobe deal because Sura's contract expires in 2008, which would buy them some cap space down the road."
Look, I know the radio business lends itself to hosts lazily skimming other people's columns and blogs ... but seriously, Colin, in the words of Mark Jackson, you're better than that. Your show's on for three hours a day and you get four giant commercial breaks per hour. That leaves you plenty of time to research your segments so you don't come off as misinformed. No offense.
simmons perhaps trying to earn rep with the underground by bashing the schrutebag. if he calls him that everyhting we ever said about simmons is wrong.
Well, good to know that at least it'll still be on TNT.
I love TNT. They have a pretty good and consistent line-up (Marv & his team, Kevin Harlan & his team, Dick Stockton & his team) with no big holes (except Doug Collins).
ESPN on the other hand is dreadful. Just horrid, terrible announcing. Mike Tirico is the worst of them. Every time something exciting happens, he raises his voice and he sounds like a child trying to get some attention. Someone get him a voice transplant. Terrible.
NBA on NBC is where it's at. Marv and Costas every Sunday morning during a triple header vs. Tirico on a single broadcast starting at 4PM (that's on the west coast...). Truly awful.
Wow I couldn't agree more with Jordinho. The NBA is making an epic mistake signing with Walt Disney. This year's Finals will be the norm in ratings, getting beat by shows like "So You Think You Can Dance?" and reruns of "CSI". What really blows is, when you tell Stern this, he'll point his finger at lack of interest. But unfortunately, the lack of interest is due to a television agreement that doesn't market the league for jack. Put the Finals on NBC, the Sunday day games, put a Sunday night game on ESPN, keep the Wednesday/Friday games on ESPN, leave TNT untouched. The conference finals deal should be split between NBC and TNT, with ESPN getting first and second round action. Can't we all get along?
Great...eight more years of hearing Dan Patrick fellate Stern on the air. Joy to the world..