Select Los Angeles Clippers Games to Return to Broadcast TV; Could Streaming be Home for Remaining Games?
Los Angeles Clippers fans will have a new home to watch games. The team will be returning to airwaves on a locally broadcast channel for the first time since 2009. The NBA has announced that Los Angeles’ No. 1 TV station KTLA 5 will exclusively carry 11 regular season Clippers games and four preseason contests. Highlights of the station’s regular season schedule include games against the Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Portland Trail Blazers. The team does not currently have a deal in place to air the rest of its regular season games, but with the season approaching, that should be remedied sooner rather than later.
“A critical way fans engage with the Clippers is by watching games on TV, and there is no better broadcast partner than KTLA, Los Angeles’ #1 TV station,” LA Clippers President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker said. “The segmentation of the television market has become difficult for consumers. We believe it’s incredibly important for Clippers basketball to be accessible to as many people as possible, and the return of the NBA to KTLA is a critical step.”
KTLA will be the “official broadcast home of the LA Clippers,” which means that, in addition to the games, the station will produce live pre-game, halftime, and post-game programming for games broadcast by the station and carry special programming related to the team including a “Countdown Clock to Gameday-Buzzer.”
“Starting with the opening of Clippers training camp, L.A.’s Very Own KTLA 5 will be there every exciting step of the way,” said KTLA-TV’s Vice President and General Manager Janene Drafs. “Clippers fans across Southern California can count on KTLA for exciting pre and post-game shows, insightful analysis, up-to-the-moment Clippers news, special features on the players and coaches, and one-of-a-kind related programming throughout the 2022-2023 basketball season.”
The move comes amidst an uncertain time for the Clippers broadcast rights. Until the end of the 2021-22 season, those rights were owned by Bally Sports and its parent company Diamond Sports Group. Sinclair’s Diamond Sports previously owned the broadcast rights to the Clippers, along with 41 other NBA, NHL, and MLB teams, but it may have to sell Diamond just to stay afloat.
Maintaining dedicated sports cable channels for individual markets is an expensive venture, and the Clippers were likely looking for a raise in rates for their broadcast rights. Bally is launching a direct-to-consumer (DTC) sports streaming service later this month, which will carry the multitude of regional sports networks it still has the streaming rights to. Unfortunately for Clippers fans, without a new deal, games will not be available via Bally Sports+.
The other L.A. basketball team, the Lakers, make about three times as much as the Clippers do for their broadcast rights, according to reporting from NextTV. The two teams’ broadcast deals were signed at a time when the Lakers were on the ascendance and the Clippers on the decline; now the opposite is true. The Clippers’ deal ran out at the end of last season, and it’s highly likely the team’s desire for a raise led to the break up with Bally Sports.
So where does this leave the Clippers moving forward? NextTV also reports that Clippers owner Steve Balmer — former CEO of Microsoft — considered taking the team direct-to-consumer before the 2016 rights deal. Now that the team has no main TV provider, a DTC streaming service could be its best option, especially with the technically savvy Ballmer sitting in the owner’s chair. So don’t be surprised if “Clippers+” hits an app store near you before the start of the 2022-23 season.
Another streaming option for the Clippers could be with Amazon. Not only has the retail giant successfully launched its first season of exclusive “Thursday Night Football” games on Prime Video, but they are also apparently contemplating signing a deal for the West-coast based Pac-12 conference, and have team specific broadcasting agreements with MLB's New York Yankees and the WNBA's Seattle Storm.