Comcast expects an 11-year media rights package with the NBA to soon be announced, according to Michael Cavanagh. And the major pro sports deal is expected to bring in a younger audience, where Comcast, through its NBCUniversal unit and Peacock streaming service, sees opportunity for programming that extends beyond live games on the basketball court.
The comments from Cavanagh, President of Comcast, came Tuesday during the cable operator’s second quarter earnings call.
“We don’t believe that the resolution of matching rights will affect the package that we expect to be awarded,” Cavanagh added, referring to long-time rights holder Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT Sports decision yesterday to exercise its option to match, reportedly to equal Amazon Prime Video’s deal.
The total 11-year rights package is reported to be worth around $76 billion across three separate deals, which also includes Disney’s ESPN. The NYT reports NBC is expected to pay around $2.5 billion per season over the course of the agreement.
With the existing deals on the table locking up NBA rights for the next decade, executives noted that opportunities like this come along very rarely.
Cavanagh described why Comcast is excited, including the NBA bringing in a broad, younger and diverse audience “that’s culturally relevant.”
And with it the opportunity to create and serve complementary content as it looks to evolve its media business over the longer-term, where it wants Peacock to ultimately be a destination for sports, news and entertainment programming.
“This new fan base will also allow us to create new entertainment content that will work beyond the basketball season with exciting opportunities for companion programming and marketing collaborations that tap into the NBA’s pop culture appeal,” said Cavanagh.
He added there is a lot it can do “with demographics that follow the NBA around other programming,” as content teams are now focused on that audience in terms of driving entertainment programming “with the advantage of being linked closely to the NBA.”
Other streaming platforms and services have made moves to bring in adjacent or shoulder sports programming, like Roku’s launch of an NBA zone and FAST channel that has sports content sans new live games. And Netflix, while not yet going after pricey rights for full seasons of major league pro sports, is following a different strategy that includes the drama and storytelling of sports – with original content that can tie into buzzy live events, like its ongoing series Receiver, which is available before the streaming giant airs two Christmas Day NFL games later this year – and its own events like The Netflix Cup, a golf tournament featuring golf and racing athletes from earlier-aired exclusive series. It also has $5 billion dear for WWE content starting next year.
As for Comcast, it’s looking to serve up the full slate and leverage sports fan engagement for entertainment programming as well. With a nine-month basketball season, Cavanagh also said the NBA deal gives the NBCU unit a full year calendar of sports, which already includes the NFL, Olympics, Premiere League, NASCAR, PGA Tour, Big Ten and the World Cup.
“And our NBA package will establish must-watch Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night traditions on NBC and Peacock,” the executive continued.
The company sees itself as being able to drive value, including by growing ad sales with an NBA ad inventory package coupled with its other premium programming and by “acquiring and monetizing subscribers both on linear and Peacock.”
In terms of financial return for outlays of rights, he noted that there’s already unique reach with its existing broadcast business but that there are a lot of exclusive games that can help attract subscribers to Peacock.
“Sports has been a great source of acquisition for us at Peacock and a great source of value to the consumer,” said Cavanagh, adding that sports fans watching on Peacock show a significant amount of viewership for other non-sports programming. And looking at its TV assets together, it will use the NBA rights deal to “rebalance programming from other areas with this content” and lower subscriber acquisition spending for Peacock in other areas. Peacock earlier this year saw how sports can draw a crowd, when 23 million viewers tuned in to watch exclusive coverage of an NFL Wild Card playoff game.
Finally, he said it will help optimize NBCU content investment across sports, entertainment and news.
“We look forward to putting the weight of our entire company behind our partnership with the NBA for decades to come,” Cavanagh said in opening remarks.
Per Cavanagh, the expected package for NBCU, which begins with the 2025-2026 season, includes:
- 100 NBA games each regular season across NBC and Peacock, which he said “is more than any other media partner and more regular season games that each existing partner has under the current rights deals.”
- For playoffs, NBCU would have first and second round games each year, exclusively, on its national platforms
- Six NBA conference final series over the course of the 11-year deal
- Exclusively on Peacock, approximately 50 national regular season and post-season games, including national Monday night games and double headers
- Additional elements include the annual NBA All Star game and the All Star Saturday night each season; the season opening NBA tip off double header each season; a special double header on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday; and select NBA games and every NBA all-star game on Telemundo
And WNBA is part of the picture, where starting in 2026, the company will have more than 50 WNBA regular season and first-round playoff games each season across Peacock, NBC and USA. Sky Sports will air all NBCUniversal NBA and WNBA games in its markets.
Additionally, Xfinity is the NBA and WNBA’s marketing partner in the video category.
NBC and Peacock are poised for a major sporting event with the kick off of the Olympics this Friday, July 26, where it’s made several streaming product and user experience updates to help viewers navigate and engage with the event.
In Q2 Comcast’s NBCUniversal unit reported an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $348 million at Peacock – a $303 million improvement year over year and its largest improvement since launching in 2020. Peacock Q2 revenue increased 28% to $1.05 billion, including $402 million in ad revenue and $581 million in distribution revenue. Compared to Q1 Peacock’s total subscribers declined by 1 million to now 33 million in Q2, a period in which the SVOD said it was focused on retention. It represents around 9 million more subscribers than the streaming service had at the same time a year ago.
Better performance at Peacock helped increase NBCU Media unit Adjusted EBITDA by 9% yoy to $1.4 billion.
On the Comcast linear side, total video revenue declined 7.8% in the quarter to $6.78 billion, as pay TV subscribers also continued to decline. Comcast reported losing 419,000 net pay TV customers, compared to losses of 543,000 a year ago. It’s total residential traditional video base now stands just around 13.2 million versus nearly 15 million in Q2 2023.
Consolidated Q2 revenue of $29.68 billion was down 2.7% yoy. Total Comcast Adjusted EBITDA was $10.17 billion in Q2.