A lot has been made about Major League Baseball possibly working on a league-wide streaming package, but another league could be headed in a similar fashion. John Ourand of Puck is reporting that the NBA could have its own local streaming rights deal in place for the start of their next regular season.
13 NBA teams current have their local rights controlled by Main Street Sports Group, the embatttled regional sports network that appears to be going dark after this NBA regular season comes to an end. Main Street reportedly missed their rights payments to the teams for January, prompting the league to accelerate their plans to centralize local media rights. Sports Business Journal’s Tom Friend reported last year that the NBA was hoping to have around 20 teams’ local media rights packaged for a streaming service such as Amazon Prime or DAZN for the 2027-28 season.
Freind and Mike Mazzeo then postulated the five teams who have their games aired on over-the-air channels (Dallas Mavericks, New Orleans Pelicans, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers, and Utah Jazz), four teams that own their own RSNs (Chicago Bulls, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, and Washington Wizards), the four teams whose local rights are controlled by NBC-owned RSNs (Boston Celtics, Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, Sacramento Kings), plus the Brooklyn Nets and Toronto Raptors, could get the league to 28 teams whose rights could be packaged.
The two teams currently on the outside are the Los Angeles Lakers, whose rights Spectrum SportsNet pay $150 million a year for, but the RSN is on the selling block according to reports, and the New York Knicks, whose RSN (MSG Network) is owned by team owner James Dolan.
Ourand reported Thursday that streamers are willing to lay down a lump sum for a large but incomplete set of local media rights than have to negotiate all 30 deals one at a time.