NBC loses NBA

NBA to Jump To ABC, ESPN

By Leonard Shapiro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 15, 2001; Page D01

The NBA will move its games to ABC and ESPN next season, leaving longtime network partner NBC out of the professional basketball business for the first time in 12 seasons, sources told The Washington Post last night.

NBC's four-year, $1.75 billion contract as the NBA's exclusive network rights-holder runs out after the current season. Starting in the 2002-03 season, ABC and ESPN, under the corporate umbrella of the Disney Company, will now take a significant part of the NBA package in a deal that will be announced early next week by the NBA.

By moving its network games to ABC, the NBA will lose about 60 national network exposures it currently has on NBC.

NBC spokesman Kevin Sullivan said last night the network would have no comment. Mike Bass, the NBA's vice president of strategic corporate communications, said "we're not going to comment on our negotiations." Chris LaPlaca, ABC-ESPN's spokesman, said only that "we're still at the table with the NBA."

Turner Broadcasting, which is coming to the end of its $890 million deal with the NBA, will continue as one of the league's broadcast partners. Turner apparently has reached a deal to pay the league more than $1 billion for the next four years, with doubleheaders every Thursday night.

NBC had been prepared to offer the NBA about $1.3 billion to continue its relationship with the league. ABC and ESPN are believed to have raised their bid to the $1.6 billion range to get the games, meaning an extra $2.5 million per NBA franchise in TV revenue in each year of the four-year deal.

Under terms of the new contract, ABC will carry 10 to 15 regular season NBA games, and only the NBA Finals will be on the network. If one team sweeps, it will mean only four postseason games will be shown on network TV starting in the 2002-03 season. All other playoff games will be on ESPN and Turner.

Also in the future mix will be about 100 games to be televised by a soon-to-launch AOL cable sports network that will be shared with the NBA and CNN-SI. Turner and CNN-SI are both part of the the AOL-Time Warner corporation.

For NBC, it would mark the third time since 1998 that it has lost one of its crown jewel properties to another network. After a long association with the NFL, NBC lost its package of American Football Conference games to CBS in '98. In 2000 NBC also balked at Major League Baseball's asking price and walked away from the negotiating table.

NBC still is the network of the Olympics, and has a significant schedule of events in NASCAR, college football, horse racing, tennis and golf, including the U.S. Open and Ryder Cup.

Dick Ebersol, president of NBC, said the football deal would have resulted in millions of dollars in losses for his network, and that parent company General Electric was not willing to keep the package. In the current depressed sports advertising market, the NBA package also has been a significant loss leader for the network: $100 million last year and an estimated $200 million this season.

In an interview last month, Ebersol said virtually every major sports rights deal now is essentially either a break-even or major loss-leader proposition because of arguably the worst advertising market in TV sports history.

"I have been in this business for 34 years," Ebersol said, "and there's never been anything that approximates this. Everything else has been a walk in the park compared to this."

Sources indicated those losses are likely to continue with ABC-ESPN barring a major upturn in the economy and spending on sports advertising. NBC had been willing to suffer losses on the NBA because of its value as a promotional tool for other network programming.

Other network sources said ESPN and Turner could also recoup some of their investment with higher user fees passed on to cable consumers in their monthly bills.

NBC had always aired a number of playoff games, mostly in the later rounds. With this new deal, the NFL remains the only major sports league that televises every one of its playoff games on free, over-the-air network television.

Over the last four years of NBC's NBA contract, ratings have declined in both the regular season and playoffs, not including the final championship series. In the 1998-99 season, regular season games averaged a 4.3 rating. Last season, it was a 3.0. In the playoffs in 1998-99, the rating was 6.5. Last year it was 4.9. The NBA Finals in the first year of the NBC contract did an 11.3. Last year, they were slightly better, at 12.1.

 

Yeah I know. I figured that out after I posted this message. Sorry.

So let me get this straight. ESPN will now televise the NBA. They televise the NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, NCAA football and basketball. I say ESPN should change its name to the All Sports Channel.