The first four games of the Western Conference final between Thunder and Spurs averaged 9.62 million viewers, combining linear viewership measured by Nielsen on NBC and streaming consumption tracked by Adobe Analytics.
It was the highest average for a Western Conference final on record and the best performance in a conference final since Heat x Bulls in 2011.
At the end of the regular season, the NBA had already reported that more than 1.3 billion hours of live games were consumed globally on television and streaming (not including League Pass).
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The volume represents growth of 93% compared to the previous year, reinforcing a trend observed since the first months of the season.
In January, the league recorded an 18% increase in domestic viewership compared to the same period in the previous season. The explanation: more games on open television, greater presence on digital platforms and distribution less dependent on pay television.
By the middle of the season, national broadcasts on ABC, ESPN, NBC and Prime Video averaged 2.02 million viewers.
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The first NBA Finals of the US$77 billion era begins today with exactly this perception: that the new media agreement not only redistributed partners, but expanded the league’s reach.
I borrowed and adapted the opening of the subtitle of this column from an article by analyst Marion Ranchet published last week.
When analyzing the positioning of different distributors during the playoffs, Ranchet noted that the NBA’s new media ecosystem produced three distinct responses.
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Prime Video focused its communication on specific matchups and league stars. ESPN bet on messages linked to consumption flexibility and entry price. Peacock, on the other hand, combined the two approaches and added a third element: package strength.
It is a pertinent observation because it shows that spraying, often treated as a problem for the consumer, can also function as a reach expansion mechanism when accompanied by complementary distribution strategies.
But there is an important irony behind this success.
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While the new national agreement appears to validate the fragmentation thesis, the NBA is already working on the next transformation of its media ecosystem.
The solution to a local problem
A month ago, the Sports Business Journal revealed that the league may bring forward the launch of a streaming platform focused on local broadcasts to next season, a project initially scheduled only for 2027-28.
The reason behind the anticipation: the closure of Main Street Sports Group in April.
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According to SBJ sources, the league is in negotiations with YouTube TV, DAZN, Amazon and ESPN to broadcast local games from a group of teams (something close to the NFL Sunday Ticket model).
Streaming platforms, however, require a minimum number of franchises to close any substantial deal, which industry experts estimate could be worth billions.
So far, 13 teams are strong candidates to join the platform: Hawks, Hornets, Cavaliers, Pistons, Pacers, Clippers, Grizzlies, Heat, Bucks, Timberwolves, Thunder, Magic and Spurs. Sources also believe that NBC Sports still wants to divest its RSNs, which would put the Celtics, Warriors, 76ers and Kings on the market.
Added to them are the five teams that have already left the RSNs (Suns, Jazz, Blazers, Mavericks and Pelicans). In an optimistic scenario, up to 22 franchises could join a national streaming RSN.
While 17 of the 29 American teams recorded local gains from the previous season, Main Street Sports Group defaulted on royalty payments to 13 franchises in January. The impasse has forced teams like the Thunder and Spurs to wait for approximately $180 million in fees owed.
Local instability is the Achilles heel of a business that, nationally, has never been so strong.
Almost two years ago, it was negotiating the biggest media deal in its history, with three players sharing the bill and a projection of US$290 million per team at the end of the contract. At the time, I wrote that the exposure would be greater, but the stability, not so much.
The league had completed a study on the local RSN ecosystem and had not yet decided how to move forward. Some of the teams had already lost relevant agreements, and the attempt at digital control within the market remained uncertain.
What RSNs teach us
The decline of pay TV gradually dismantled the economic mechanism that supported RSNs.
In an analysis written in January, Michael Broughton argues that attributing the collapse of RSNs solely to cord-cutting is a comfortable but incomplete explanation.
According to him, regional networks did not stop working because the product lost value. The problem was that a financial structure based on high levels of debt came to depend on a distribution base that continually shrank, while the costs of sports rights continued to increase.
The bankruptcy of Diamond Sports, in this context, does not just represent a consequence of changing consumer habits. It became a case study on the limits of a financial model built for a distribution environment that no longer exists.
It is precisely in this scenario that the comparison with the NFL Sunday Ticket made by the Sports Business Journal gains relevance.
The idea would be to bring together local games from dozens of teams within a single distribution infrastructure, preserving part of the franchises’ autonomy while simplifying access for consumers.
This is a proposal that directly dialogues with a recent analysis by Amit Lahav on the future of local sports broadcasts.
According to Lahav, the main American leagues reached the same diagnosis about the exhaustion of the traditional regional model, but they are adopting different paths to replace it.
MLB has moved toward a more centralized approach in certain markets. The NBA, in turn, is moving towards experimenting with a hybrid solution.
Instead of fully assuming local rights, the league seeks to create a national distribution layer capable of organizing a market that has become excessively fragmented.
The difference may seem subtle, but it is strategic.
For decades, geographic segmentation made sense because pay television guaranteed virtually universal distribution.
In streaming, this logic changes. The value becomes less in the separation of markets and more in the ability to concentrate inventory, audience, subscribers and data in the same technological infrastructure, as explained by Lahav.
The new national agreement shows that open television, streaming and multiplatform distribution can coexist and even expand the league’s reach.
The challenge now is to build a local version of this same success.
If the last few years have been dedicated to reinventing national distribution, the next few years will be defined by the search for an answer to an even more complex question: how to economically replace a regional system that financed much of the growth of American professional sports for three decades.
And, apparently, the NBA would prefer to find out that answer before the rest of the market is forced to do so.
