The local media deals completed by the Los Angeles Clippers and Washington Wizards/Capitals this fall were trumpeted by many media outlets — including this one — as templates for the future of video, given the over-the-top plans that were carved out of both deals.
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With a huge rights fee increase, Ted Leonsis also took a stake in CSN Mid-Atlantic.
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That’s why it was interesting to hear ESPN President John Skipper and Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany describe those deals along more traditional lines.
In October, Wizards and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis more than doubled his rights fee, took a 33 percent stake in Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic, and partnered with NBC Sports on an over-the-top service. A month earlier, Clippers owner Steve Ballmer signed a new deal that increased his rights fee on Prime Ticket and gave him non-game rights to pursue an OTT service.
While the deals certainly are rooted in traditional television, they both seemed to set a path for how people will watch sports eventually.
But Skipper and Delany see them differently.
“I thought Mr. Leonsis did a very nice piece of business. He got Comcast to pay him a big increase. He took a piece of the channel. And he had them underwrite a second channel,” Skipper said during the Shirley Povich Symposium at the University of Maryland earlier this month. “I don’t see it as quite as revolutionary because he’s still putting most of his good games on Comcast’s regional sports network and getting more money for it. And he also owns a piece of it. It’s just a great piece of business.”
Delany agreed, comparing Leonsis’ October deal with NBC Sports to the Clippers deal signed a month earlier with Fox Sports.
“The same thing played out with the Clippers and [team owner Steve] Ballmer,” he said. “They suggest that they would go over-the-top 100 percent. Then the retreat position is that they did the same old deal, with a little bit more over-the-top. It’s a pretty traditional deal with a little bit of icing on the cake.”
— John Ourand
