Is watching NBA basketball getting cheaper yet?
The new media rights deal hasn't addressed every headache yet.
Good morning. Let’s basketball.
Il Ponte di Legno; Serafino de Tivoli; 1857-59
Through the playoffs and Olympics, the seismic shifts in NBA media rights came to bear. The league announced its deals with Disney/ESPN, NBCUniversal and Amazon; Warner Bros. Discovery matched the Amazon bid; the NBA rejected the match attempt; WBD sued the NBA. The lawsuit appears doomed, and it’s worth noting that no one at Turner is acting like they believe the network will keep the NBA beyond the 2024-25 season.
Another lawsuit may have more success of derailing at least one sports streaming service, though: FuboTV won an injunction against the new Venu Sports, that Frankenstein live sports service with ESPN, Turner Sports and Fox Sports. Fubo’s argument comes on anti-trust grounds, saying that Venu Sports will reduce competition in the space. Fubo has positioned itself as the streaming service to get maximum live sports in the United States. (It’s about the same cost as YouTube TV, which also gets you basically everything you need to binge on live sports.)
But with Turner almost assuredly out of the picture for the NBA, and Fox never in the picture, Venu becomes a little less attractive for hardcore NBA fans assuming that it doesn’t hit the market much before ESPN’s individual over-the-top service that includes live ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC sports programming.
So what’s the deal with NBA rights for the 2024-25?
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