David Dow. Getty Images.A few weeks ago, word leaked that the NBA was on the verge of signing a massive 11-year, $76 billion TV rights deal, which is great news for anyone interested in their favorite teams having more money to spend on their roster, but bad news for anyone who enjoys Inside The NBA.
Now the agreement is official.
And it's time to start the clock on whether or not TNT will match one of these offers and keep Inside The NBA in our lives.
The deal, which set an NBA record for both length and total value, takes effect in the 2025-26 season. Games will continue to air on ESPN and ABC, with select games on NBC and Amazon Prime in the future. TNT Sports, part of the NBA broadcast family since the 1980s, could be on its way out, but it has five days left to strike a deal to match one of the deals.
The five-day countdown will begin once the league sends the completed contract to TNT.
TNT Sports currently pays $1.4 billion per season, and given the value of the three packages, it's likely the company will be willing to match that amount for Prime Video rights.
Of course, like everyone else, I can't imagine a world where there is an NBA season and the Inside The NBA crew isn't involved. No one wants to live in that world, but it definitely feels like we're heading in that direction.
I've already blogged extensively about that aspect of the deal and how awful it is, so today I want to focus on another thing that annoys me: this schedule.
Now, I am one of those basketball fans who already watches NBA basketball 7 days a week from October through June, regardless of the matchup. I am not the type of fan the NBA is trying to market/appeal to. I am already hooked. So, is it great to have nationally televised games 7 days a week? Is it?
My issue is primarily how this will impact my daily life, and I feel this is not just an NBA issue, but an issue for all sports that we need to solve as a society. It is clear that the future of television and professional sports is streaming, whether it be Peacock or Amazon. While the broadcasting itself is fine (in fact, I don't have Amazon's imagery or production), there are some very troubling issues with this new form of game viewing.
These games will be on Peacock/Amazon/etc, but I suspect they will be on when the rest of the NBA games are on regular TV/League Pass. I have no interest in changing apps or reloading every time an Amazon game goes to commercial. This is one of the reasons I never really watched NFL games on Amazon. Half the fun of having 11 games on at once during an NBA season is being able to seamlessly move between games at every break or use multi-view (if you're using YouTube TV). Younger generations may not care about this sort of thing, but it annoys me greatly. Some may say the easy answer is to have multiple TVs or watch streaming games on a laptop or whatever, but don't be. All I want is to be able to easily change channels and watch sports when something goes to commercial.
If that makes me an old man, so be it.
For me there is an easy solution to this problem. Don't ask me about the technical aspects because it's easy for me at least. There should be a way to link all these streaming services to your current TV provider. For example, when you launch YouTube TV, there are Peacock/Amazon/Netflix channels. To unlock them you need to sign in with your account. Once you sign in, you will see professional sports, exactly like League Pass or Sunday Ticket. On that day, Peacock will stream NBA games and YouTubeTV will have the Peacock NBA channel active, so you can easily switch between games within the same app.
Honestly, this one's a no-brainer: Whether it's Thursday Night Football or an NBA game, all you have to do is click on the Amazon Sports channel.
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Of course, I think it's obvious why these companies don't want to do this: they're interested in driving you to their apps, tracking your information and data, and getting your eyeballs into their systems to watch other stuff. All of that is understandable. I'm not saying get rid of Peacock/Amazon/Netflix, I'm just saying they want fans to continue to watch their products using regular TV platforms, like League Pass/Sunday Ticket are doing.
Let's be honest, the harder you make it for consumers to watch your product, the more people will turn to illegal streaming. In fact, that's already happening before this deal went into effect. If fans have to open and close and switch between all these apps just to watch regular season basketball, they're going to stream it and use a Chromecast to get it on their TV or whatever.
