The NBA has broadly been anticipated to discover enlargement 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 enlargement charge. The NBA, nonetheless, continues to take a sluggish strategy in direction of enlargement and cited the continued regional sports activities community points as a purpose for being cautious.
“The quick reply is not any new developments,” stated Adam Silver. “However I’d solely say by way of this 12 months, I believe we’re nonetheless within the strategy of digesting the Celtics’ transaction. There’s little doubt {that a} main transaction like that turns into related to enlargement.
“That deal has simply been offered to us, so we’re nonetheless analyzing it. My sense is as soon as we’ve been by that course of that we’ll flip to it in a extra severe manner.
“The league workplace has continued to mannequin what potential enlargement might appear like over the past 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 have now our nationwide offers in place — and in addition from a participant standpoint.
“I’d simply add the final element, 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 at the moment are 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 enlargement domestically, I believe we’d actually like to grasp what that chance for native media is, as a result of it’s a fairly crucial element of our groups’ economics.”