Latest from Next TV in Spurs

NBA Tipoff: Five Things You Should Know

Mike Reynolds — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 12:00:00 +0000

The king has returned to Cleveland. KD is on the shelf. Kobe and D-Rose are on the mend. And the San Antonio Spurs want a repeat that would give leader Tim Duncan a sixth ring, matching some guy named Mike.

These are among the key storylines on the court as the National Basketball Association tips off its 2014-15 season, its first full campaign under the watch of commissioner Adam Silver.

On the business side of the basket, ESPN and TNT, which earlier this month renewed nine-year deals for a combined $24 billion that will make them NBA partners into the middle of the next decade, have shuffled some of their on-air talent as they look to extend their recent ratings reign that has seen them net the four most-watched seasons in their histories.

Perhaps more interestingly, this season figures to mark the first with widescale in-market streaming by regional sports networks. The game simulcasts will be available to the RSNs’ authenticated video customers. Here are five forecasts for the new season:

1. Games will be streamed: After tests with six clubs and a handful of distributors, Fox Sports Net regionals will cast a wider streaming net this season. Officials say 16 Fox regionals that have rights to NBA teams’ games will start the season by streaming games from the outset via the Fox Sports Go TV-everywhere platform. YES Network, which televises the Brooklyn Nets, will come on board later.

At press time, the NBA and Comcast’s NBC Sports Group were putting the final legal touches on a deal that will also let its RSNs with NBA teams jump into the streaming game.

2. Regional viewership will shift: With LeBron James back on his throne in Akron, Fox Sports Ohio will benefit from a jump beyond its 2.79 household rating average in the Cleveland DMA. Conversely, Sun Sports, James’s erstwhile TV palace, figures to drop from its 6.86 mark in Miami, the third-best for NBA RSNs in 2013-14.

The top RSN in terms of NBA ratings last season, FS Oklahoma, could see a downturn from its 8.68 in Oklahoma City as Kevin Durant recovers from his foot injury.

3. Ratings should keep rising: Since ESPN joined TNT as a national carrier 12 years ago, viewership has jumped 24%, and the last four seasons have been the most-watched in their history with pro hoops.

“The league is very strong. Its beauty is that has a young and multiethnic appeal,” Doug White, ESPN director of programming and acquisitions, said. “The NBA is the third-most-popular sport among Hispanics and overindexes with African-Americans. There is vast interest in the NBA around the world.”

4. The on-air roster has changed: The Golden State Warriors’ coaching change has resulted in new lineups in both national telecasters’ booths. With Steve Kerr now leading the Warriors, TNT plans to shuffle analysts Grant Hill, Greg Anthony and Reggie Miller with play-by-play men Marv Albert and Kevin Harlan. “We’re going to rotate guys, mix and match them over the course of the season,” Turner Sports president Lenny Daniels said. “We have a deep bench.”

Kerr’s predecessor, Mark Jackson, is set for a full season with ESPN/ABC Sports. He rejoined tablemates Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy last May — many view the trio as the game’s most entertaining — after the Warriors fired him. White noted that there would also be different pairing permutations in play.

5. Big moves will be made over the top: While fans, distributors and Wall Street are all awaiting ESPN and the league’s OTT play under the new media-rights deal, there’s plenty of new action beyond linear this season.

The NBA and Turner will make its “NBA League Pass” live game out-of-market package more accessible to fans via new deals with several alternative distribution platforms, including Microsoft’s Xbox One video game console, as well as through the Amazon Fire digital player, Samsung Smart TVs and select Sony Blu-ray players, NBA officials said.

The package of 900 live regular-season games — retailing at $199 for access on both TV and digital platforms — will also include for the first time a library of classic NBA games. They date back to the 1960s, but are heavily weighted toward memorable games played during the 1990s and 2000s, Turner executives said.

NBA Finals: Spurs-Heat Slide from 2013 Levels

MCN Staff — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 05:45:00 +0000

The San Antonio Spurs’ roundball version of the “joga bonito” during the NBA Finals didn’t play so high with the Nielsens.

With only one competitive contest, ABC’s coverage of the 2014 NBA championship rematch took a double-digit tumble from last year’s Spurs-Miami Heat matchup.

The Spurs’ decisive five-game dethroning of LeBron James’s Heat -- San Antonio set a league mark for point differential in The Finals -- averaged a 9.3 rating and 15.5 million watchers on ABC, according to Nielsen data, declines of 11% and 12%, respectively, from the clubs’ epic seven-game battle last year.

The decline came despite the 17.9 million total viewers for ABC's June 15 telecast, as the final game of the NBA season ranked as its most-viewed -- up 19% from the previous high in the series and 10% greater than last year, when the teams were tied entering Game 5.

When gauged against the first five games of the 2013 Finals, the 2014 competition's average ratings and viewership improved 2% and 3%, respectively, from a 9.1 and 15.1 million. That series ramped up with the Nielsens with the hyper-competitive Games 6 and 7.

Spurs-Heat also was down 8% in both metrics from the 10.1 rating and 16.9 million viewers recorded for Miami’s five-game win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. Overall, the Spurs-Heat series ranks as the lowest-rated and least-viewed NBA Finals since the 8.4 and 14.3 million watchers for Los Angeles Lakers-Orlando Magic in 2009.

Miami and San Antonio rank as Nielsen markets 16 and 36, respectively.

NBA Finals: Audience Up 1% Through 4 Games

Mike Reynolds — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 14:00:00 +0000

With the San Antonio Spurs on the verge of winning the NBA title that eluded them last year, ABC’s presentation of The Finals is up marginally from last year through the first four games.

The Spurs’ second consecutive road blowout of the two-time defending champion Miami Heat averaged a 9.3 rating and 14.96 million watchers on June 12, according to Nielsen data, down 7% and 8% from the Game 4 matches between the clubs in the 2013 version of The Finals. The telecast peaked with 16.7 million viewers in the 11 p.m. quarter hour.

Despite the series’ first downturn, ABC easily won the night in rating and viewership across all television for the 41st consecutive time.

Through the first four games, the Spurs/Heat redux has averaged a 9.1 rating, inching up from a 9.0 and ahead 1% to 14.9 million viewers from 14.8 million a year ago.

How many viewers will tune in to see whether Miami can stave off the Spurs, or whether San Antonio can claim its fifth title before its hometown crowd? Last year, Game 5 – the teams were knotted at two games apiece – netted a 9.5 rating and 16.3 million viewers.

From there, the series heated up with the epic battles in Game 6 and Game 7 that produced big ratings and vaulted Spurs-Heat I to ABC’s third-best Finals averages of a 10.5 and 17.7 million since its coverage re-entry in 2003.