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Last week, the NBA signed a new $74.6 billion media deal with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon Prime Video for the 2025-26 season.
This week, New York Knicks owner James Dolan lambasted the deal in a letter he wrote to the NBA’s Board of Governors.
In the letter, which was obtained by ESPN, Dolan wrote to the league, “The NBA has made the move to an NFL model — deemphasizing and depowering the local market. Soon, your only revenue concern will be the sale of tickets and what color next year’s jersey will be. Don’t worry, because due to revenue pooling, you are guaranteed to be neither a success nor a failure.
“Of course, to get there, the league must take down the successful franchises and redistribute to the less successful. This new media deal goes a long way to accomplishing that goal.”
James Dolan also blasted the NBA for its proposed revenue sharing in sponsorship and local television packages, claiming it “would also have a negative impact on the value of each member team’s local sponsorships” with “the delivery of camera-visible benefits at as few as 23 home games – roughly 20 percent reduction to what was historically provided.”
“These changes drastically increase the challenges associated with attracting and renewing vital sponsorship revenue by creating a particularly unfriendly environment for member team sponsors,” Dolan wrote.
Much like with the Major League Baseball and the NFL where games are broadcast on a plethora of different networks, the Knicks’ owner sees the NBA’s new media plan making regional sports networks like the Knicks’ MSG Network “unviable.”
“Member teams depend on revenue received from local rights fees and on increased fan engagement through high quality broadcasts that provide dedicated and tailored coverage for local audiences,” he wrote.
“Yet the proposal threatens to completely eliminate (Regional Sports Networks) without a comparable replacement offered by the league and no articulated plans to address the production and distribution vacuum that the league will inevitably create in its quest to further disrupt the RSN industry.”
In conclusion, James Dolan wrote, “We are well on our way to becoming a one size fits all, characterless organization. Just remember we did this on the backs of owners like Jerry Buss.”