As an impending NBA media rights deal is pushing the value of league broadcasts above the rim, no one’s calling foul on its price.
The National Basketball Association continues to put up big numbers for media partners and advertisers alike. Game 3 of the NBA Finals drew 11.426 million viewers to ABC and ESPN, peaking at 13.926 million viewers.
That’s up from 11.24 million for last year’s Game 3, with the majority of viewers watching on linear television (58%), followed by streaming (24%) and YouTube TV (17%), according to AdImpact.
That breakdown is a bit of what’s driving The Wall Street Journal-reported $76 billion NBA media rights deal. It’s an 11-year deal that would not only replace incumbent broadcaster Warner Bros. Discovery with NBC and Amazon but tilt a mix that includes ESPN more heavily toward streaming. If that estimate holds, it would also increase the NBA’s rights fees 2.5 times from its last deal.
According to the metrics, the NBA has made a strong case for a raise.
During the NBA’s 2023-24 season, television data and analytics firm EDO found that the NBA produced more than 56 billion impressions for its advertisers across more than 29,000 airings. That made the full NBA season four times more impactful for NBA advertisers than the average primetime program.
As the NBA regular season wore on, viewers were 12% more likely to engage with an ad during an NBA game than during the average primetime broadcast—up 15% from a season before. Once the playoffs began, viewers were 39% more likely to interact with an ad during game time than in primetime. That put the NBA second only to the National Football League in effectiveness for advertisers—with increased streaming opportunities offering NFL-sized potential to score big for brands.
“This deal signals a new streaming era for the NBA and its fans,” said Laura Grover, svp and head of client solutions at EDO. “Given recent NFL success with streaming-exclusive games on Amazon and Peacock, advertisers should feel confident that these new formats will drive the business results they are looking for.”
The last sure thing
Kenneth Suh, chief strategy officer for video and connected television advertising platform Nexxen, noted that the reported $76 billion price tag makes more sense to companies that view the NBA (and WNBA, whose rights are included in the deal) “as a lifeline and a guarantee of eyeballs in a time of uncertainty.”