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robert d's avatar

Stop calling the new NBA TV Deal a tripling. Or at least if you want to insist that the deal is a tripling, then you change my annual subscription from a 12 month service to a 15 month service since apparently time doesn't matter.

The previous deal was for 9 Seasons. This upcoming one is for 11 Season and cannibalizes local TV revenues with the new "C" package because it's created from that previous bundle. The WNBA point probably doesn't matter too much, but the previous deal had $600M of $24B that went to the WNBA (2.5%) and honestly of the $76B it's probably going to be about the same portion. But in an apples-to-apples comparison this new NBA TV Deal is basically a 2.6x in annual revenue. It's nice, but well below expectation especially when you consider that the first rumblings of a "tripling" in rights was well before this high inflation regime we've experienced. If we were to evaluate this in real terms, it's likely going to be closer to a doubling.

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Martin Blank's avatar

This all the talk of “tripling” without any actual fine details on what was being sold in both cases is exactly the kind of fine detail I was hoping for fork a pod like this. Frankly I think Ethan has been getting pretty lazy/complacent lately.

This is basically his Super Bowl in terms of his interests and he is bringing the knowledge of any random person instead of some actual expertise.

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robert d's avatar

If you want nitty-gritty details about how the National TV contract would/should look given all the details we know (and how it would affect the Salary Cap) I do have you covered there with that lol https://atlhawksfanatic.github.io/posts/2024-06-08-projecting-salary-cap-tv/

As it relates to the Ethan lazy/complacency, maybe for other stories/content because he does toss out a lot of Niners stuff? But with this particular story (NBA TV Rights) I do not think that is the case. There just isn't much information out there in the public domain about what the contract will look like....yet Ethan does give us an interesting tidbit from a Media Exec about how the Media entity values regular versus post season at a 20/80 split. I do think that is new info in the public sphere and probably should have been discussed/highlighted a bit more.

The "tripling" still does piss me off though lol

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OgdenTheGreat's avatar

Surprised Ethan missed the simple answer re: the NBA deal.

It’s just bad business for ESPN and Comcast (not so much Amazon because they use non-NBA Prime consumers like non-sports viewers were used in the cable bundle era.

NBA used leverage and desperation-driven deal heat from ESPN and Comcast to land the deal - trying to find a rationale behind it is a waste of time.

And whoever told him 80% of the money comes from the playoffs needs to have their credentials revoked - in a $7b deal, that’s ~$5.5b coming from two months of games with a few million viewers for most of them.

So the reason there’s no way to square the circle is because it’s Occam’s Razor - it’s just a bad deal that ESPN and Comcast will regret.

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Ethan Strauss's avatar

"And whoever told him 80% of the money comes from the playoffs needs to have their credentials revoked"

Without giving too much away, this individual literally negotiated the last TV deal on behalf of one of the broadcasters

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OgdenTheGreat's avatar

I’m not saying he isn’t giving you direct information - I trust your sources implicitly.

I’m saying as someone who used to negotiate media deals that it’s literally impossible to approach that number given the ratings we both know - and it doesn’t even come close.

So he’s either spinning you or he’s repeating the internal spin they used to justify a deal that can’t be.

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OgdenTheGreat's avatar

The third option of course is that we’re both kinda right.

Assuming his information is correct and it is 80%, the disconnect could be that it has no relation to the final number in the contract.

IOW, the NBA playoffs might be worth $1.2b to ESPN and the whole package $1.5b (thus the 80%) but they paid $2.6b because they made a bad/desperate deal.

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Neil Paine's avatar

Maybe I am taking the bait and/or missing the point, but Purdy as a comparison makes zero sense for Tatum. Tatum was the No. 3 pick in the draft and has a 6-8 prototype NBA body type and skill set. Purdy was the last player drafted and has below-NFL average size and arm strength. I can't think of a comparison that makes less sense, unless it's just the vague vibe that somebody with great stats can't get it done in the clutch?

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Teutonia World's avatar

Purdy is more like young Chris Paul although there's no great comparison

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DF's avatar

Used to love/hate Sharp and Golliver when they did the Open Floor podcast back in the day. I also think his piece for Grantland about why KD going to GSW was bad for basketball was one of the great honest pieces of basketball journalism for an era that sorely lacked it.

The Bear / The Celtics criticism both seem to emanate from Chronic Twitter brain, though.

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Joshua Pressman Jacobs's avatar

I couldn't find Sharp's Grantland piece on KD. Are you sure it was published there? Simmons left Grantland in 2015, and the site became a shell of itself for the last year of it existence after that (if it was even that long)

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DF's avatar

Sorry, it was SI!

Just a quick hitter, but it spoke for the normies while the rest of basketball Twitter scolded us. Not unlike Strauss’ best stuff!

https://www.si.com/nba/2016/07/05/kevin-durant-golden-state-warriors-nba-free-agency-history

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Joshua Pressman Jacobs's avatar

Thank u !

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Brandon Alleman's avatar

Accidently opened the YouTube link for first time. It went straight to an ad for penis lengthening techniques.

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Phillip's avatar

Do you remember the name of the company? Asking for a friend

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darryl's avatar

Pretty sure ads are tied to your online browsing persona these days.

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PW's avatar

The Jason Whitlock piece...

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Brandon Alleman's avatar

First time Ive seen that one!

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Carlo's avatar

This is just my monthly reminder to Strauss that he had Will Cain on his pod. I know you saw Will Cain interviewing Papa Trump about declassifying files.

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Cole Robillard's avatar

I think Andrew is dead on. The price for this round likely still being still by Espn (ad driven revenue model). But that’s going away and the 10 years will get silver and all of these player and many of the owners a to the end of their careers

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Joshua Pressman Jacobs's avatar

This was a good pod. I really respect Sharp’s take on JJ. It’s a fair critique without the vitriol

Or personal vendetta against him.

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Clinton Kelly's avatar

BROCK PURDY - OUR LORD AND SAVIOR - IS THE ONLY MUSE HERE!!!!!!

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Martin Blank's avatar

I am so sick of Purdy discussion because it is always the exact same point. There is zero movement.

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Gene Parmesan's avatar

Yeah. Also the answer is that he's a pretty good QB.

The more interesting discussion is whether it's a viable strategy for teams to try to get adequate play at QB for 0 dollars and build up the rest of the team rather than investing massive resources at QB

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