The National Basketball Association has long envied the National Football League's stranglehold on the lucrative world of local broadcast rights. While the NFL has managed to centralize and standardize its local TV deals to create a level playing field for all 32 teams, the NBA has struggled to emulate that success. What this really means is that the NBA's decentralized local rights structure poses unique challenges that the league can't simply solve by imitating the NFL's approach.
The Logistical Hurdles
As Blazer's Edge reports, the sheer volume of NBA games is a major obstacle. The NFL has 32 teams playing roughly 13 games each per season, while the NBA has 30 teams playing 3-4 games per week. That amounts to over 50 NBA games per week - far more programming than any broadcast partner could realistically accommodate.
The bigger picture here is that the NBA's dense regular-season schedule is fundamentally different from the NFL's more contained weekly format. Replicating the NFL's centralized model would require the NBA to overhaul its entire season structure, which is simply not feasible.
Balancing Local and National Interests
Another key difference is that the NFL's local broadcast rights are more valuable relative to its national deals, irritating some NFL executives who see the NBA's national media contract as encroaching on their territory. In contrast, the NBA's national rights now eclipse local deals in importance, as regional sports networks decline.
This means the NBA must carefully balance the interests of its local franchises with the league's broader national strategy - a delicate dance the NFL doesn't have to worry about to the same degree. The NBA can't simply impose a one-size-fits-all local rights model without risking backlash from its most valuable market teams.
A Hybrid Approach
Rather than copying the NFL, the NBA seems poised to forge its own path, blending over-the-air broadcasts with team-specific streaming services, as outlined by TVRev. This hybrid model allows the league to maintain local relevance while capitalizing on the shift to direct-to-consumer streaming.
The NBA's challenge will be to ensure this new system benefits all 30 franchises equally, rather than widening the gap between large and small markets. But by innovating rather than imitating, the league may just find a solution that works for its unique circumstances.