NBA commissioner Adam Silver put his foot in his mouth throughout Wednesday’s press convention earlier than the league’s preseason board of governors conferences.
Silver fielded questions referring to Kawhi Leonard’s controversial endorsement offers with the Los Angeles Clippers in addition to the NBA’s new broadcast schedule, which is able to characteristic video games throughout digital streaming properties corresponding to ESPN, NBC’s Peacock and Amazon’s Prime Video.
Ever because the decline of cable tv, we’ve entered right into a “reduce the twine” streaming world that requires a number of subscriptions to look at reveals, films and stay sports activities. This isn’t simply a problem surrounding the NBA because the NFL and MLB are going through comparable challenges about capitalizing incomes potential by means of streaming rights whereas maintaining an inexpensive product for followers.
Silver was requested concerning the rising value to look at NBA video games at dwelling and his reply was attention-grabbing to say the least.
“There’s an enormous quantity of our content material that individuals can basically watch without cost,” Silver mentioned. “That is very a lot a highlight-based sport.”
The commissioner referenced Instagram, TikTok and Twitter as locations the place followers can view basketball.
That’s all positive and nice till you notice you could’t watch full video games on social media, and whereas basketball definitely has become a most popular sport for the youthful technology of sports activities followers, the NBA is alienating a giant sector of their viewers. Older followers will not be going to devour NBA content material on social media. They’ll simply miss the sport if they’ll’t work out the best way to stream it.
Whereas everyone was working with the clip of the commissioner of the NBA virtually telling the world to only comply with him on Instagram, Silver did observe that with the league’s new media deal, they’re going from 15 video games on broadcast tv to 75. It will enable followers to look at extra marquee video games with solely a TV antenna, making basketball rather more accessible to anyone with a tv.
Based on ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, the NBA’s nationwide tv networks (Amazon, NBC and ESPN) met this week to debate how they’ll work collectively on transferring ahead with an accessible product for followers.
Watching the NBA on tv will definitely look completely different transferring ahead. Contained in the NBA is transferring from Turner Sports activities and TNT to ESPN, which was confirmed by Shaquille O’Neal this week.
The NBA aired on TNT for 36 seasons. 2025 will definitely be the beginning of a brand new period of watching basketball. Simply be sure you’re following them on social media, too.
