NBA in unique position with TV deal

ByDARREN ROVELL
October 6, 2014, 1:43 PM

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But the idea, as Leonsis explains it, is for ESPN and the NBA to be able to sell digital packages to mobile customers worldwide with a large choice of payment systems. Imagine a person in Beijing buying a season's worth of a team's games for his phone, or even just particular highlight packages, or maybe even for just a quarter of live action on the spot after following the game on Twitter. That's all possible, and it's not hard to visualize.

Although nothing is for sure, that idea was worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the NBA in this deal.

But also of tremendous value was the business landscape at large. In the past two years, Fox has stepped up its game with Fox Sports 1, and so has NBC Sports with its own network. What does this mean? There is value to the rights holders in keeping the competition out. The value of doing that today is greater than ever before, which is also reason why these deals are being extended so far into the future. This deal is long at nine years, but not as long as some other deals ESPN has negotiated recently: The US Open tennis deal goes to 2025, the College Football Playoff goes to 2026, as does the Rose Bowl, and its SEC deal goes to 2034.

It's a tribute to sports television as a product that today's nine-year deals, at the price that is being paid, is not being questioned. In fact, NBA commissioner Adam Silver acknowledged that some owners wanted to do 20-year deals, but in the end, the shorter deals made sense, he said, because of emerging technologies and tech companies (often taken, in business circles, to mean Google and Apple) who might be ready to bid next time.

Just think about that. How many businesses feel as confident about their future as they do about the present? Very few, which demonstrates the strength of the sports sector, on any screen.