The NBA has extensively been anticipated to discover growth following the sale of the Boston Celtics, which got here in at a $6.1 billion valuation and can assist set the benchmark for a possible growth payment. The NBA, nonetheless, continues to take a gradual strategy in the direction of growth and cited the continued regional sports activities community points as a purpose for being cautious.
“The brief reply isn’t any new developments,” stated Adam Silver. “However I might solely say when it comes to this 12 months, I believe we’re nonetheless within the means of digesting the Celtics’ transaction. There’s little question {that a} main transaction like that turns into related to growth.
“That deal has simply been introduced to us, so we’re nonetheless analyzing it. My sense is as soon as we’ve been by means of that course of that we’ll flip to it in a extra critical manner.
“The league workplace has continued to mannequin what potential growth might appear to be during the last 12 months or so. And once more, that included each understanding dilution from an financial standpoint — we now have a greater understanding of that now that we’ve got our nationwide offers in place — and in addition from a participant standpoint.
“I’d simply add the final part, which is also giving me only a little bit of pause, is that we’d wish to have a greater sense of the place we’re going with native media. Invoice Koenig is right here, our head of media. He made a reasonably prolonged presentation to the board on that. It’s well-known that we’ve seen some vital declines there. Nearly two-thirds of our groups are actually coping with RSNs that just lately skilled bankruptcies or have shut down.
“I believe whereas we perceive the nationwide media panorama now, to the extent we’re growth domestically, I believe we’d actually like to grasp what that chance for native media is, as a result of it’s a reasonably crucial part of our groups’ economics.”
