The National Basketball Association announced a new In-Season Tournament starting in the 2023-24 season, and it could mean a big change for its upcoming media-rights negotiations.
The league's current media-rights deal with ABC/ESPN (DIS) -) and TNT (WBD) -) expires after the 2024-25 season, and some observers say that the league will attract several suitors for those rights, including Amazon (AMZN) -), Apple (AAPL) -), and Alphabet's Google (GOOG) -).
The NBA is expected to seek about $7 billion to $8 billion a year for its next deal, up from the $2.6 billion it currently receives from Disney and TNT.
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A league spokesperson said that the In-Season Tournament will be included in the upcoming media-rights deal. Front Office Sports reports that the new tournament could offer up the tournament as a stand-alone package or an enhancement of the bigger package.
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The package could become a cheaper alternative to NBA rights for streamers to enter, akin to the offerings of the NFL, which has rights with several different outlets. These include "Thursday Night Football" and the league's first "Black Friday" game with Amazon.
A stand-alone package could be explored as Front Office Sports reported previously that the NBA was expecting to sell a separate package for games that will be exclusive to streaming.
