Five NBA teams in limbo as RSN deadline looms
Five NBA teams in limbo as RSN deadline looms
Major sports leagues are scrambling to claw back ownership of their teams’ streaming rights, but that is going to lead to a few uncomfortable years for teams.
The NBA is facing a dilemma similar to that of Major League Baseball. According to Sports Business Journal, the league wants to launch its own in-market streaming platform. Unlike the Association’s current NBA League Pass which allows fans to stream games that they can’t get where they live, this proposed platform would allow fans to stream games from their local teams without having to sign up for a cable, satellite, or live TV streaming service. Currently, no major American sport offers such a service, although MLB has long been working on the idea. Instead, teams generally partner with regional sports networks (RSNs) to broadcast in-market games, but as the traditional TV ecosystem continues to decline, leagues are looking for new ways to deliver content to fans — and make money off of it. While the NBA is reportedly working toward that goal, SBJ reports that five NBA teams currently partnered with a FanDuel Sports Network RSN are stuck with a decision as they await more information about the nationalized streamer.
Key Details:
- The five NBA teams face a deadline to opt into new contracts with their FanDuel Sports Network partner.
- The teams could re-up with those channels for just one year while they await the new streamer.
- The league has a plan to get even big-market teams to sign onto its new streaming service.
The five NBA teams in question are the Milwaukee Bucks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat, and Minnesota Timberwolves. SBJ says that they face a soft deadline of April 1 to decide whether or not they will opt into a deal with FanDuel through the end of the 2026-27 season.
So what’s the hold-up? The teams are reportedly waiting to hear more about the new, national streaming platform the league is working on. They need to know how much more NBA media distribution president head Bill Koenig has to finalize with the proposed, and current indications suggest the service is still very much in the planning stages.
The opt-in deadline for these teams has already been extended once, so it could theoretically be moved forward again. The teams in question could also modify their deals to stay with FanDuel Sports Network until the end of the 2025-26 season instead, giving Koenig one more year to put together the streamer.
Many NBA teams have seen the yearly fee they collect to appear on an RSN drop from between $5 million and $30 million per season, and some would likely be thrilled to join a service that could help them claw back some of those fees. But other NBA clubs, like the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks, make hundreds of millions per year in RSN fees, and would seemingly shy away from joining a service that could see their fees decrease.
One source tells SBJ that the league is trying to determine how it can prorate the profits generated by its new streamer in larger markets so that these teams are more tempted to join. The idea is that a national platform like ESPN or Prime Video would pay big money to help distribute the RSN platform.
“If we can aggregate enough teams over the course of the next couple of years from a local streaming standpoint, I think [a streaming company] is going to pay top dollar for that,” a team executive whose franchise is currently with a FanDuel RSN said. “We’re in a couple of rocky years here, and obviously not where we were a few years ago from an RSN [rights fee] standpoint. But I think we’re going to get back there in another couple of years. That’s my opinion. I think we’ll be close.”
It’s an ambitious plan, but teams who are tempted to join now face a choice of leaving the relatively higher fees they still get on linear RSNs, or staying with those partners while they wait for the league to give them more assurance. Teams may get a boost from the enhanced revenue generated by the NBA's new national TV deals, which will begin rolling in soon.
FanDuel Sports Network
FanDuel Sports Network is a direct-to-consumer streaming service that offers live games for those who want access to your local FanDuel Sports Network RSN without subscribing to a cable or satellite package. It was most recently known as Bally Sports, and prior to that, Fox Sports Network.