ESPN, Turner Seek 8 More Years of NBA
Amid Ratings Slip, Nets Seek Rights Until 2015 Season
By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 6/10/2007 8:00:00 PM
Turner Network Television and ESPN may have shot ratings airballs during the National Basketball Association playoffs, but both networks are poised to score eight-year renewal deals with the league.
Sources close to both ESPN and TNT said a deal to keep NBA regular-season and postseason games on their respective channels through 2015 could be signed as early as this week, or prior to the end of the San Antonio Spurs-Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Finals series. Both ABC's current $2.5 billion and TNT's $2.2 million six-year agreements with the pro-hoops league end after the 2007-08 season.
While network executives would not reveal deal specifics, the agreement is expected to net both ESPN and TNT long sort-after digital media rights.
The current contracts do not afford the rights-holders the ability to show game highlights or other NBA-based video content on their broadband or mobile platforms. Instead, such content — as well as the league's 800-game out-of-market live package — is offered through NBA.com.
TNT Sports president David Levy and ESPN senior vice president of programming and acquisitions Len DeLuca intimated in previous interviews that digital rights were paramount to concluding new agreements.
Talk of finalizing new rights deals follows a downturn in league post-season ratings. ESPN finished its NBA playoff coverage off 27% to a 2.4 ratings average over 17 games, compared to a 3.3 rating through 20 games during last season's playoffs.
TNT averaged a 2.7 household rating for 43 playoff games this season, 12% lower than last year's 3.1 mark for 45 games.
The proposed eight-year deal is also becoming more the standard for long-term pacts for major sports TV properties. In the past, four- and five-year deals were the norm, but recent cable network deals signed with Major League Baseball and the National Football League are approaching a decade in length.
Last year, ESPN and Major League Baseball reached an eight-year, $2.4 billion regular-season TV package, while TBS signed a seven-year, multimillion dollar deal with baseball to televise one of two postseason League Championship Series.
TBS also obtained exclusive rights to all four Division Series from 2007-13, and it will air a Sunday game-of-the-week package beginning next season.
In 2005, ESPN and the NFL reached an eight-year, $8.8 billion for Monday Night Football rights.
TV sports analyst John Mansell, of Great Falls, Va.-based John Mansell Associates, says such long-term deals insulate the leagues from economic and ratings fluctuations.
“If it looks like the networks aren't willing to pay a hefty increase in the near-term, then there maybe more of an incentive for the leagues to go long-term,” he said. “For the leagues, [such deals] have greater certainly over an extended period of time in case of an [advertising] downturn.”
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