When the NBA announced its new 11-year, $77-billion media rights deal with ESPN/ABC, NBCUniversal, and Amazon’s Prime Video, the move was widely well-received, particularly for returning the league to longtime partner NBC.
Not everyone was thrilled with the NBA on NBC revival.
According to Puck’s John Ourand, some NFL brass were “irritated” by the deal.
“Executives at the NFL are irritated. That deal irritated them,” Ourand told Andrew Marchand during an appearance on Marchand’s podcast. “The idea that NBC is paying more for Sunday Night Basketball than for Sunday Night Football. These are people and personalities, and it makes the executives at the NFL crazy that that happens. So could they come in and just start to turn the screw because of that NBA deal?”
NBC is paying roughly $2.5 billion annually for NBA rights, including Sunday Night Basketball, while it currently pays around $2 billion annually for Sunday Night Football rights.
Ourand’s comments come during a discussion about the NFL’s presumed opt-out of its current media rights deals in 2029 (2o30 with ESPN). That includes the NFL’s current arrangement with NBC Sports, highlighted by Sunday Night Football. As Ourand and Marchand discuss on the podcast, the NFL isn’t exactly known for a “live and let live” attitude when it comes to such issues, and if they feel as though they’re not getting what they deserve financially, they’ll be sure to let you know about it.
“It shakes out with the networks paying a ton more money to the NFL. A ton more,” said Ourand. “We’ve always talked about that line for the other league, who are the haves, who are the have-nots? That line is going to be much more defined once these rights come out, because all of a sudden, you have the Premier League that’s coming to market with all of its games. NBC is going to pay a lot more, and they’re going to be paying for NFL, they’re paying for the NBA. Can they afford something that’s really weekend morning programming in the Premier League? You have baseball that’s coming up.”
Ourand noted that he doesn’t see streamers being able to step in and take many of the existing NFL rights away from the broadcast networks and current partners in this round, though Marchand was a bit more bullish about some of their chances, including Prime Video.