Disney Does Hoops

[Another Voice]

Disney has just signed a $4.6 billion dollar deal with the NBA to broadcast basketball games on ABC and ESPN.

This figure represents a 25% increase in the annual fee over the deal that NBC had with the league, a deal that NBC claimed lost them $100 million a season. During the last four years of the NBC deal, ratings for basketball dropped 35%.

Under the deal ABC will broadcast fifteen games on Sunday night and the NBA Finals. ESPN and ESPN2 will seventy-five games on Wednesday and Saturday nights.

AOL TimeWarner has signed on, with it’s TNT cable channel to carry 52 regular season and 45 play-off games, as well as the All Star Game. This is part of a much larger, separate deal that TimeWarner has signed with the NBA to create a new cable channel that will carry all NBA games. In effect, to create a competitor to the games being shown on ABC and ESPN.

[Quentin Disney]

I can't predict if this would be a successful thing for the company, but there is one thing that will be lost for ever in sports broadcasting history...

...The "NBA on NBC" theme!:(

[YoHo]

I guess this is sort of a good thing. Personally I think the popularity of basketball has dropped like a rock since the good personalities such as Jordan, Magic Johnson and the like have dropped out (you can see the spike Jordan's return has made).

[Tannerman]

This was bad timing by Disney. NBC was smart to get out of it, as the NBA has lost it's charm and appeal. Congrats to Ei$ner on another dumb move.

[Eeyore2U]

I'm not sure of the numbers but this package maybe close to twice as many games per season as the NBC contract. I think ESPN gives them a lot more flexibility. I'll save judgement for now.

[Safari Steve]

This agreement includes broadcast rights for ABC, ABCFamily, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNClassics, ESPN Radio, and ESPN.com as well as "emerging technologies applications" and "video game development".