Report Has NBA TV Rights Back To Turner For Slight Increase

Will Stern Score With Increased Rights Deal?

Placing NBA programming on "a new shared AOL Sports channel with Turner likely will let the league increase its rights fees over the expiring" $2.46B, four-year contracts with NBC and Turner, according to Rudy Martzke of USA TODAY, who reports the NBA "has renewed its cable deal with Turner for more than" $1B for four years, up from the $840M deal that ends this season. Under the deal, TNT would retain two games a week, and a TBS game "would shift to the new shared channel." AOL Sports, "likely a makeover of 20-million-home CNN/SI, would add NBA games and related programming to events already telecast." Meanwhile, ESPN and NBC are "negotiating for the other half of the package, which could be worth" $1.5B or more. NBC "is considered the favorite because it has televised 34 regular-season games each season while ESPN only figures to be able to place about 20 games on ABC." Martzke: "The network figure is less than the $1.625[B] NBC currently is paying, but the package with Turner figures to surpass the present NBC/Turner deals. ... Obtaining an increase in a declining economy, a one-third drop in ratings and losses of $100[M] or more a year for NBC and Turner would be considered an accomplishment for NBA Commissioner David Stern" (USA TODAY, 12/11). The WALL STREET JOURNAL reports the NBA's new TV deal is "expected to be valued at about the same as or less than its current" four-year, $2.6B deal. Meanwhile, some sources say that the NBA is "prepared to divide cable rights between AOL Time Warner and ESPN," but it is "unclear whether Disney is willing to enter a deal with the league without ABC" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 12/11). NEWSDAY's Steve Zipay: "Without the NBA, NBC will have abandoned baseball, the NFL and the NBA in six years" (NEWSDAY, 12/11).