If the NBA’s ownership class remains justifiably delighted about the league’s new $76 billion rights package, that’s not to say that sacrifices weren’t made in order to secure what amounts to a compound annual growth rate of 8% and an 11-year stretch of guaranteed stability. As New York Knicks owner James Dolan memorably groused last summer in a memo to the NBA’s board of governors, the terms of the new national media deal threaten to make a hash of the legacy RSN model.
In adding a second broadcast partner and thereby increasing the volume of regular-season games that will air nationally—with NBC set to suit up for the first time since 2002, the number of over-the-air NBA games will increase from 20 this season to approximately 75 in 2025-26—the league has had to pull a corresponding chunk of inventory from the RSNs.
As Dolan wrote last summer, “The increased number of exclusive and non-exclusive games means that national partners would have the ability to air nearly half of the regular season and all postseason games.” The owner went on to predict that the subsequent “reduction in available games for RSNs risks rendering the entire RSN model unviable.”
Dolan’s discomfiture is understandable, as cord-cutting was already doing a number on the legacy RSN model well before the NBA began beefing up its national TV slate at the expense of the local sports channels. Between 2019 and 2024, the RSNs formerly housed under the Diamond Sports Group banner lost as many as 25 million subscribers, and with an annual churn rate of 12%, the traditional cable/satellite/telco-TV bundle is shrinking like a salted slug.
For all that, the volume of regular-season games that will be lost to the national media partners starting next year isn’t expected to be unmanageably disruptive. “Once the schedules are released, we expect that the average team will lose about three games, which is hardly debilitating,” Playfly Sports CEO Craig Sloan said during a recent Zoom call. (Playfly sells NBA, MLB and NHL ad inventory across the RSNs.) “Some teams will have zero disruption, and others will have a bit more, but they should on average be about three per club, is our understanding.”
Sloan credited Adam Silver for his judicious approach to kicking inventory upstairs, saying that the NBA commissioner “managed to manufacture that without having to degrade any significant value from the local media side.” More to the point, the reduction in the number of games carried in the home markets isn’t expected to be sufficient to trigger any complaints from pay-TV operators, which are guaranteed a set number of games under the terms of their various carriage deals.
Nor are fans likely to notice the reduction of in-market offerings, although your milage may vary depending on which team you root for. Big-market RSNs linked to high-value franchises will be more susceptible to losing games than low-profile clubs based in second- and third-tier DMAs.
Where the RSNs can expect to get dinged is during the first round of the NBA playoffs, which for decades has functioned as a shared space. Starting next season, the first eight best-of-seven series will no longer be available on the respective local platforms, as the league’s national media partners will assume full control of the round. And while it remains to be seen what sort of impact the end of “side-by-side” local/national coverage will have on the Nielsen ratings, the contributions of those in-market channels are significant. On average, the RSNs and other local TV outlets contribute as much as 40% of each first-round games’ overall deliveries.
Sloan concedes that the loss of those playoff games will have an impact, as postseason inventory “is a helpful driver for regular-season ad sales.” In other words, marketers who want to take advantage of the big playoff ratings are generally required to purchase regular-season inventory, although that’s not to say that the premium units are deployed as a cudgel to move the more quotidian spots.
The loss of all that early playoff inventory will be marked by a concomitant reduction in ad sales revenue, although not so much as to put anyone in the poor house. “There’s so much volume in the regular season that there’s actually not going to be a dramatic reduction in overall revenue,” Sloan said. “It will equate to a high-single-digit percentage of our total NBA dollars. And of that, it’ll be interesting to see how much we can replace next season with incentives.” As such, fans may notice an uptick in experimental/non-traditional ad formats and other on-screen premiums when the 2025-26 NBA season tips off in October.
While Sloan did not volunteer a hard dollar amount, a little back-of-the-envelope math based on legal filings and other financial documentation suggests that the RSNs and other in-market platforms may expect to lose a grand total of $60 million in ad revenue next season. A good chunk of that sum should be recoupable during the regular season.
That said, the loss of the local connection that’s forged season after season could have a bit of a chilling effect on the NBA’s national ratings during next year’s opening round. When markets like Boston and New York are in play, in-market deliveries can account for nearly half of all the impressions that are credited to the national media partners. As such, it’ll be well worth keeping an eye on the first-round playoff ratings in 2026. As Playfly head of research Gregg Liebman notes, “first-round viewership is largely driven by the home-team fans, and it’s not until the later rounds, the Eastern and Western Conference Finals, that the more casual fans start coming in.”
If you’re a Knicks fan, this all means that you’re going to have to steel yourself for a postseason devoid of the stylin’ and profilin’ of MSG’s Walt Frazier. Clyde has said that he’ll be devastated to leave his playoff booth duties behind, and local Knicks supporters who hang on his every word for six months each year are equally bummed at the prospect. (Meanwhile, Frazier’s boss now has a lot more to worry about than a handful of games that must be surrendered to ABC and NBC; as part of a bid to restructure MSG’s debt, the Knicks owner last week agreed to a 28% rights-fee haircut, with the team’s media dollars next season set to shrink from a planned-for $148 million to about $106 million.)
If the absence of Clyde promises to take some of the fun out of the Knicks’ future playoff runs, the ramifications of the NBA’s new media deal will resonate far beyond New York. “Certainly, you lose that affinity component in the local home market,” Sloan said. “I think the fans are going to miss that local voice, even with all the drama that happens in the playoffs. To lose out on that familiarity is a real miss.”
