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And with eBay guaranteed fit, your part is guaranteed to fit your ride every time or your money back. Because with eBay Motors, you're burning rubber, not cash. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it's easy to make your car at the MVP and bring home huge wins. Keep your rider die alive at ebaymotors.com. Eligible items only, exclusion supply, see ebaymotors.com. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) What is up everybody? Thank you all for joining me on the latest more cast part of the CSG Network. I am of course your host, Jeff Morton. We have some news that came down this week. By the way, the final start yesterday and the Boston Celtics blew the doors off of the Dallas Mavericks. And I predicted before the series that this would be probably a short one. I have nothing in the favor of Boston and nothing has deviated from that prediction for me. I do believe that even though the West is a stronger conference, the Celtics are better than most every team in the West, except for I think Denver's terrible matchup for them and they would have struggled against the Nuggets. So I think this was the best of all options for the Boston Celtics. And they ended up playing a five seed and this is the new NBA is interesting. And this kind of ties into what I'm gonna talk about today, which is the NBA media deal, the immense amount of money and expansion because expansion is coming out of Adam Silver, hinted at it in his finals presser last night. And I'm going to get into that a little and talk about how it will make the league healthier. But first, I wanna talk to you about BetOnline. BetOnline is your number one source for the NBA finals and Stanley Cup playoffs this season. Every stat, every matchup and even live odds and spreads while games are being played. 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BetOnline, the game starts here. So Adam Silver kind of talked about last night how the NBA media deal will influence expansion. Behind the scenes, the NBA has known that it's needed to expand for quite some time. In fact, I'd say that the NBA was aware of it going back even five, six, seven years now. It wasn't a consideration before there was attempts to relocate around 2013-14 that famously didn't go right. And didn't go the way of the people looking to relocate a team and therefore it was, it's been put on the back burner as the NBA figures it shit out. Basically is the best way you could put it. And expansion is something that the league has needed to do for a long time because the concentration of talent is getting greater and greater. And believe it or not, you don't want that if you're a league. Even in the NFL, it's talent is generally not concentrated like it is in the NBA. There's less roster spots. So that means the influence of the amount of talent being concentrated in the league isn't as great because there's 50 something roster spots on every team. And that means over 2,000 players or close to 2,000 players plus support staff, all that stuff, it's a different ballgame there. And the NFL can afford to be basically mediocre play because they're the most popular league in the United States. But coming back to the NBA, the league has been aware that it's needed to do something. And it's the only way you can ease up the talent glut is to create more jobs. Essentially that's what it is. The more jobs you create, the more diffuse things are and the less bound up everything is. And I do believe that is playing a factor in some of the roster congestion we have been seeing. I do believe that this sort of thing has been part of the calculations that GM's have been making. Because once 15, another 15 and another 15, you're talking about 30 roster spots, guaranteed plus six more. There'll be two teams, by the way. And I've talked about this before, but they both six more two way contracts. That is a lot of, that's a lot of jobs. And what that will do is ease what we've got going right now. And it'll help create, ease some of the problems that has been created by the last CBA because there'll be an expansion draft and you'll be able to unload players that way. You can put, you can make certain players eligible in the expansion draft that they're good enough. They'll be selected by a team as the way things go. Now, the NBA has not expanded since 1995 in this way. There was an expansion team in 2003 that was the Charlotte Bobcats, but that was a make good expansion. As I've talked about this many times before, but the city of Charlotte tried to forcefully eject George Shin, who was the owner of the Charlotte Hornets, from owning the team because he had, was basically a no-good guy. And there was some sexual harassment stuff going on and it was bad, but in order to get around that, George Shin was gonna move the team to New Orleans. The city of Charlotte got together and tried to basically relieve the team. And this is about 2002-ish, 2001, 2002. And what had happened was David Stern stepped in and said, "You can relocate the team to New Orleans." And he told the city of Charlotte, "You get an expansion team." So that brought the league to 30 teams. And what we have seen since then is, there hasn't been a major expansion in almost 30 years. By the end of this next season, it will have been 30 years since the NBA expanded in a meaningful way. And the NBA expanded pretty intently from 1988 to 1995. Now, I've gone over this before. The '95 expansion was abridged too far. They expanded too quickly. And it really, really made the quality of play in the NBA awful. And that is really, usually it takes that sort of thing to produce a 70-win season. Okay, the two 70-win seasons we've had are the Bulls in an expansion year in 1995-96. And the Warriors of 2016, when everyone was tanking. That's usually what it takes to make a situation where the league is getting a 70-win team. This will be a little different, even though this will make the quality of play worse. Adam Silver acknowledged that there will be a committee formed to get on and on expansion. I think everyone and their brother knows it'll be Seattle and Las Vegas, unless something catastrophic happens. Those are the two teams, and then we'll have teams shifting from the west to the east. This is needed to happen for a long time. And it's one of the reasons it's needed to happen for a long time is you, the markets in the NBA became more small market oriented over the course of the 2000s. It was part of a gambit from David Stern. It was the One Horse Town gambit. And the One Horse Town gambit was simply this, like Portland and like Salt Lake City. They wanted teams in areas where they didn't have to compete with the NFL. For whatever reason, I don't think, and I think that kind of calculation doesn't matter. I'm not one of these people that thinks that the NFL is always going to be the most popular sport in the world. And excuse me, not in the world, but in the US. And honestly, there's no point in trying to avoid being in cities where the NFL team is. It's just stupid. It is what it is. It's a constant. It's like complaining about the sun, you know? So the NBA went through this gambit where they went from Vancouver in 2001 to Memphis from Charlotte to New Orleans, from Seattle to Oklahoma City. And what that did was it limited their scope. And you'll see a lot of the ratings decline in a lot of things. And I'll get to the ratings aspect of this in the second half because, sure would Strauss. I got it. Anyway, the ratings part became less-- it didn't matter as much. NBA finals ratings have basically been cratering since the Lakers run in the early 2000s. So it's not necessarily as tied to that sort of thing. And I'd say the Nuggets and the Miami Heat did respectable considering it's two not big markets. And you had very respectable ratings. But in the grand scheme of things, what had happened was leaving larger markets for bigger-- for smaller markets, limited the NBA scope. And I think the NBA basically as soon as Adam Silver took over in 2014, a decade ago now, there was this understanding that they had made a mistake. And I do think that has been part of the calculus going forward that the league needed to get into bigger areas. And Vegas isn't huge. It would still be on the lower rung of markets, but it would be a dominant one in the Southwest. And of course, Seattle is one of the top, what is it, 10, 11 markets in the United States. And this sort of thing will bolster the NBA in financial ways and other ways that we don't get to see tangibly. And this is what the NBA has been missing for a long time. It was a misguided gambit. I am happy for the cities that have these basketball teams, but you always know that, say, like the New Orleans pelicans, slash, they were the Hornets, have always been just really in dire straits. And that's just new to their nature. The New Orleans is not a big market. And it already has an NFL team. And you do see these things go through. Now, there's San Antonio, which has great basketball history. Utah has had good history since basically the Malone-- Stockton Malone era, so we're talking about '84 or on. Before that, it was really sketchy, and that team had moved around the country. The fans of Sacramento really support their team. Well, there's places like that. There's a lot of very tiny markets in the NBA. And the NBA kind of understood that they needed to stop this. So I think that's going to help things, too. But in the second half of the podcast, I'm going to talk about this media deal and how it's kind of greasing the skids and making it OK for owners who are otherwise not inclined to want to be splitting a financial pie to be more willing to make the league worse before it gets better. And we'll be talking about that in the second half of the podcast. Passion, drive, and patience. The formula for winning championships is also what keeps your rider die alive. eBay Motors has everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level it up to peak performance. Superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, LED headlights, and more. Whether you're into speed, power, or style, eBay Motors has you covered. With over 122 million parts for your number one rider die, you're always fined exactly what you're looking for. And with eBay guaranteed fit, your part is guaranteed to fit your ride every time or your money back. Because with eBay Motors, you're burning rubber, not cash. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it's easy to make your car at the MVP and bring home huge wins. Keep your rider die alive at ebaymotors.com. Eligible items only, exclusions apply, see ebaymotors.com. This is the story of the one. As head of maintenance at a concert hall, he knows the show must always go on. That's why he works behind the scenes, ensuring every light is working, the HVAC is humming, and his facility shines. With Granger's supplies and solutions for every challenge he faces, plus 24/7 customer support, his venue never misses a beat. Call quickgranger.com or just.buy. Granger, for the ones who get it done. The new media deal is going to be around $76 billion-ish, $77, all for the course of 11 years. This is pretty impressive. Now they did it primarily by having an existing 2. something billion-dollar deal a year with ESPN being upped a bit, upped more than a bit, I think it doubled. And then NBC coming in just under. And I do mean just under the ESPN bid, which is-- I've always described this. I'm telling people this over and over on Twitter. This is not a B package. This is a 1B package. And the money that NBC is paying is coming with some expectation. And that expectation is that NBC is able to really feature games. And NBC, unlike ABC, which has been very reluctant to really feature games on ABC, NBC basically is going to be going all in on having these primetime feature games on Sunday night, what they've been doing with the NFL. The biggest product on television is Sunday Night Football. That is by far the biggest and biggest draw of anything. NBA won't be like that, but it will be a featured night on Over the Air Cable, which is going to be a game changer. And yes, NBA's had Saturday night on ABC, but ABC just doesn't know how to feature the NBA. It has struggled since they began. If anyone remembers when the NBA first got to ABC, Al Michaels was doing play-by-play. And Michaels had no idea what he was doing. No idea what he was doing and he half-assed his way through it. It just was bad. It was really, really bad. He did call the Derek Fisher 0.4 second shot, which was great. It was a great moment. But he just was clear that he was not comfortable doing play-by-play for the NBA. And they've struggled since then. They've had Mike Breen doing calling games since 2006. So he's been the primary play-by-play guy since 2006. But in the grand scheme of things, the NBA needed another big feature partner. And that's what they got with NBC. And plus, they got the special games with Amazon, which is going to get ancillary games plus the in-season tournament and the play internment. Those things are being going to-- Amazon and Amazon will be able to have whatever show that they have through them. It's going to be interesting to see how they assemble that. And I've already spoken about how the inside the NBA is likely done because of Ernie Johnson and all this stuff. So we need to move beyond inside the NBA. So this is a $76 billion package. This is more money. I mean, the last one was $25 billion. And we were all staggered by that back in 2014. This is beyond that. And what this is doing is going to be allowing the NBA to come in, you know, inflation considering. But what it has done is clarify several things that people had forgotten. One that really-- and since the '90s, this has not been tied to ratings. It's tied to inventory and inventory and exposure in this what media deals are all about. But what it will also do is give the owners an excuse to finally bite the bullet for something that they've been toying with for a half decade now. And that is expansion. Expanding into those cities that I spoke about. And I think that if we are going to be honest with each other, the amount of money that is going to be flowing into the league is going to boost team value. Team value is probably going to result in some more teams being sold. And there's going to be some churn. I've discussed it before, but even in the last segment, the teams are just waiting for this to be done. And this has been part of the problem. And this has been dragging on a bit, because usually the NBA completes this deal within the exclusive rights negotiation window. And so that ended April 20. And as soon as it went out of that without a deal for TNT, they had to broker another deal. Now NBC has been aggressively coming for this since back in 2014, by the way. People forget this, but NBC made a very aggressive bid for the NBA back then. And basically, the league just ignored them. The NBA likes to stay with its partners, thus being with ESPN, non-sensically, for 22 years. So the league got out of the exclusive negotiating window. And it became-- NBC comes in, Amazon comes in, and bam, you got what you got. And teams are just waiting for this to be completed. If you listen to people in the league and are like, come on, let's get this done. Come on, let's get this done. We don't need to be dithering anymore. Let's finalize the deal. Once the cap is known, which will begin 2025-- not this next year, but the year after-- it'll affect a ton of different things, obviously. But there's cap smoothing, and that's baked into the CBA, but it'll affect a lot of different things. But it'll also affect the expansion. Now, the reason I bring this up is that the reason it's easier now is because the NBA knows what kind of money is coming in. And they know-- and usually, when expansion teams come in, they have to opt out of revenue sharing. So for a period of time, they have to opt out of revenue sharing. And this, in turn, they have teams generating revenue, but they're not participating in revenue sharing. Usually, this is for teams that don't-- that are on the lower end of the revenue-- largely, the smaller market teams. All of these tend to opt out of revenue-- I mean, they get the revenue sharing. Expansion teams coming in, they agree to opt out for a certain amount of time. So they know that it won't be cutting into the pie, basically. Plus, they'll be getting expansion fees. And the NBA is-- if there's one thing you need to know about the NBA, they need certainty. This goes to teams. This goes to the legal office. It says everything. They do really poorly with uncertainty. And as soon as the new CBA came in and people didn't know how to operate, people just stopped trading people. And you notice this last trade deadline was kind of there. And the only part people that came out looking like a rose was the Dallas Mavericks. Well, once it's known, it's going to be this offseason. Once it's known, you're going to see teams say, OK, now I can do this based on this. They can operate under those parameters. And that is the greater financial thing. And they'll know where the cap is because that affects the cap. This is separate from the CBA, but also part of it. They know that the cap will go up a certain percentage every single year of the steal. So that's going to be-- or whatever the CBA is. And I think the CBA's are usually seven years, but they may have gone 10 years this time. That's going to be-- I don't remember that one. Someone can correct me on this. It's either seven to 10 years on this. And there could be an opt-out. Usually, the union and the owners insist on an opt-out. And usually, the owners want it to be either mutual or a gay to get one first kind of opt-out. So you've got all that going on, but the $76 billion will actually help the NBA agree to expansion. Now, another reason of this is because the quality of play in the league gets really bad during expansion years. It just doesn't matter. The NBA expanded in 1988, the off season in 1988. There was only 23 teams in the league in 1988. Then by 1988 and 1989, it expanded by four teams. So it went up to 27. And it took the league not as long as you think, because there was a glut of talent in the league. I've spoken to my friend, Andy Feinstein, about this, both on the podcast and off the podcast, is that one of the best years in NBA history, as far as competitive getting this goes, this is the '87, '88 season. That's the youngest one, 54 games out here. And we're second in the West. And there was just a glut of just talent everywhere, everywhere. And that was the first year of the Pistons won. And after that, there was a slight. And I do mean slight dip in '89 and '90. And those are the two Pistons wins. But the league was very strong through the first three Jordan titles. And that's why I consider the Jordan first three championships better than the last three, because the league was in such a better place. Now they over expanded in 1995. After the adding the four teams, they added the two Canadian teams in 1995. And it was a mistake. It was a mistake to do with it, not where they put them in, which obviously Vancouver lost their team six years later. But the league needed to wait. And that was something that I think they would even agree that they didn't. And quite frankly, it's been 30 years since they've expanded like that. I should tell you something. And it's been 21 years since the Charlotte Bad Bobcats came in, and it's soon to be the reimagined or re-emerging Hornets team. So where you are right now is a league that is ripe and ready for expansion. It's just they need it. And as for Snuggets fans, what you see is what it's going to do is likely move either Minnesota or Memphis to the east, probably both. And the candidates are Minnesota, Memphis, and New Orleans. It's those three teams that are candidates to move east when they inevitably expand to Seattle and Las Vegas. So what you're going to be seeing is a realigned Western conference. And you're going to be seeing something different. You're going to be seeing different kind of basketball. As someone who's watched the '95-'96 season, it won't be as bad as the next, quite frankly, eight years were after that, because that was bad. You won't be saying that. But you will be seeing something akin to what happened in '88-'89 and '90. Those three years where it wasn't as good a basketball, but it was still high level. Because there are so many talented players in the league. This league has needed to expand to 32 teams for so long. And they have put it off and put it off and put it off. And the league has needed to correct this. And I do believe right now we will seeing the play, the 30 new jobs, plus the six two-way contracts that will be coming in. You'll be seeing movement. You'll be seeing less concentration. You'll be seeing roster spots be freed on other teams. Because there are only 29 teams in this league. There's going to be 30 teams in this league. There's going to be 30 guaranteed roster spots coming up in the expansion draft, plus whatever draft they have there. So you're going to be seeing this get better. Because right now, think of this as a series of trains on track. Because you can't deviate. There's no off ramps. That's all one way or the other way, but it's one track. And right now, the NBA has a log jam. It's a good log jam, but it's a log jam. And they need to get some of this freed up. And the more trains they got moving on ahead of them, the more the log jam at the back is going to be able to be freed up. The best thing the NBA can do for itself is to expand, get slightly worse. Because you get worse before you get better. That's the way things work in sports leagues. And I have no doubt that this media deal is leading to what the NBA needs to do next. Expand, likely see Heddl in Las Vegas. And we'll be seeing a new, and I, in my view, a better NBA. All right. Thank you all for joining me on the latest more cast. And we'll be back soon with another episode. Goodbye. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] This is the story of the one. As a maintenance engineer, he hears things differently. To the untrained ear, everything on his shop floor might sound fine, but he can hear gears grinding, or a belt slipping. So he steps in to fix the problem at hand before it gets out of hand. And he knows Granger's got the right product he needs to get the job done, which is music to his ears. 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The NBA media rights deal is nearing completion with a staggering 76 billion over 11 years reported to be the number. On the latest Mortcast Jeff talks about how this is a make-good deal for the NBA after years of missteps and how it greases the wheels for expansion.
