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Surprised to be solicited by an MLB franchise, some of the NBA teams have passed -- such as the Thunder, who, according to industry insiders, control their own local ad inventory and aren’t interested in a revenue share. But sources said potentially the Spurs and others are still weighing the Rangers’ blueprint that projects to pay teams approximately $15M or more annually and also includes a flexible direct-to-consumer streaming product.
In the last five completed seasons, head coach departures in Europe’s top five leagues are at least 10 per cent more frequent on average than in the NHL and MLB, and between 15 and 25 per cent more frequent than in the NFL and the NBA. To understand the reasons, it helps to dig into why European football coaches get sacked in the first place. An unceremonious in-season exit can be influenced by tensions with owners, a loss of faith in the dressing room, a toxic atmosphere in the stands, or all of the above. Fundamentally, though, it tends to follow a bad run of results that leave the season either doomed or in danger of falling short of expectations.
Sources told SBJ that the Hornets were among the teams considering a deal with streaming platform Victory+. Sources also told SBJ last month that Fubo makes surprise pitch to all 13 NBA teams that fled Main Street. DAZN, Gray TV and Nexstar have also been reported as local options for teams. The Pistons’ former RSN also was the home to the Tigers and Red Wings, but those clubs – both owned by the Ilitch family -- launched Detroit SportsNet in collaboration with MLB Media. That first-of-its-kind, hybrid model has MLB producing and distributing Tigers games this season, and providing broadcast support for the Red Wings’ 2026-27 games.
Jump shooting is the single most foundational skill in basketball, and it’s been a largely subjective art for its entire existence. A dozen shooting coaches might give you 10 different nuanced approaches to shooting an ideal jumper. Now, though, the game’s most important repetitive motion is on the verge of being deconstructed by tech that has finally caught up. The concept draws regular comparisons to baseball, which has undergone its own biomechanics revolution across the last decade-plus—the nastiest pitches you see on TV these days are increasingly optimized in training facilities that emphasize concepts like spin rate and pitch tunneling. And as has been the case in MLB, many involved in these early efforts believe this and similar forms of athlete mapping are the NBA’s next big arm’s race.
Adam silver is one of America’s most powerful men. Part businessman and part diplomat, he leads a multibillion-dollar international conglomerate and exercises soft power across continents. But on the day we met, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association appeared aimless, drifting awkwardly through the roped-off VIP area of a sports-business conference in Nashville. Silver had just concluded a keynote session. Unlike other headliners, such as Major League Baseball’s Rob Manfred and the Southeastern Conference’s Greg Sankey, who’d been interviewed onstage by journalists, Silver had been joined in conversation by his friend Bob Myers, a former Golden State Warriors executive, who opened by congratulating Silver on his decency, integrity, and “moral compass.” The commissioner is carefully stage-managed. Media engagements are rare; rarer still are the probing questions that might be asked of someone leading a business valued at roughly $200 billion. Early last year, I’d approached the NBA about a profile—not just of Silver but of the game itself, a holistic look at the evolution of professional basketball. The answer: a hard no. Hence the trip to Nashville.
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New Balance executive Chris Davis: With baseball, it’s not too dissimilar at the top of the pyramid. We have individuals like Shohei Ohtani and Francisco Lindor, but we’re about to announce the next generation of great signings that we have this upcoming year on MLB rosters, and we have a number of the top prospects in Triple A. So it looks like all these athletes are coming out of nowhere to be the face of the brand for New Balance, but in reality, we have top individuals in every age group who are ascending to stardom, who haven’t necessarily attained those heights yet.
NBA games on NBC are averaging 2.6 million viewers on average, while ESPN/ABC games are averaging 2.06 million viewers, and streaming-only games on Amazon are averaging 1.06 million viewers. By those numbers, the NBA is winning the viewership battle of late. Yet, MLB has posted better numbers for big events in recent years. The 2025 World Series far surpassed the NBA Finals in viewership for their two respective Game 7s: Thunder-Pacers drew 16.61 million viewers, while Dodgers-Blue Jays averaged 25.98 million viewers. That was a continuation of a recent trend in viewership for the two sports, where average viewership for the World Series surged above the Finals.
“An economist would say, the proof is where your money is,” Matheson said. “Revealed preference tells you what’s most popular. And revealed preference is: What do I do when I have money in my pocket? As of now, the NBA and MLB are pretty much tied (in revenues). Investors’ money thinks that the NBA is the better long-term bet, hence higher franchise valuations.” Matheson offered two reasons that leagues with similar revenues might have vastly different franchise values. The first is that investors expect revenues to grow faster in the NBA than in MLB. The second is that they are focused less on revenues than profits, and it could be that they view NBA franchises as more likely to be profitable because, beyond the booming revenues, the NBA has the cost certainty of a salary cap. MLB owners do not have that — though they are expected to again fight for it soon.
Austin Reaves: “I mean, I always had delusional confidence. The weirdest story was, like I said, I’m from a town of a thousand people, so there’s nothing to do. You hunt, you fish, you do all the country stuff. I remember my mom’s best friend at the time took me hunting one day, and we were sitting there talking. I was probably nine years old, and she asked me, ‘What do you want to do when you get older?’ And I said, ‘Oh, I want to play in the NBA.’ And she was like, ‘You mean the MLB?’ And I said, ‘No, I want to play in the NBA.’ And she thought it was the craziest thing, because I played, but I didn’t really actually play like that yet. But when it really came to reality, I was at Oklahoma, and Lon Kruger followed me out of practice one day and told me, ‘I think you could be a first-round pick.’ And, you know, he’s been around basketball forever. So once he said that, I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve got a chance.’”
Rose appeared on a live edition of the "Joe and Jada Unfiltered" podcast last week and said the "only sports that have salary caps are Black led" as he talked about his problem with the system. He named leagues like MLB, NASCAR, golf and tennis that do not have salary caps. Though he failed to mention that the NHL has a salary cap as roughly two dozen NHL players are Black. "The second thing is they have no after high school restrictions," he continued. "So, that’s a residue of slavery because we’re going to get money off of you for multiple years for free. There’s no way around it. So, what happened in the game, it became so obvious because of social media and because of information, it’s like ‘We’re making a billion dollars, we gotta pay them something.' That’s how it ended up happening."
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This statement was not even correct when it was made. Years before, MLB had absorbed a small number of teams from defunct baseball associations only later to recognize the records from those leagues in their entirety. Now, with the NFL’s recent decision to accept AAFC statistics, the wobbly plank purporting to hold up the NBA’s justification has collapsed entirely. The NBA’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge ABA records does not make sense. After all, the ABA boasted major-league talent. Indeed, the rival association won most of the 155 exhibition games played between the two entities.
Mike Vorkunov: Wasserman has a number of major clients in the NBA (Evan Mobley, Klay Thompson, Sabonis) and WNBA (Paige Bueckers, Breanna Stewart, Brittney Griner) and MLB (Matt Olson, Giancarlo Stanton, Zack Wheeler, Yoshinobu Yamamoto)
A major private equity firm bought the leading sports investment firm, the companies announced Thursday. KKR took control of Arctos Partners in a deal valued at $1.4 billion, giving the private equity giant a significant foothold in professional sports. Arctos holds an extensive portfolio of ownership stakes across every major North American sports league, from the NFL and NBA to MLB, and in the NHL and MLS. In the NBA, it holds minority stakes in the Golden State Warriors, Philadelphia 76ers, Utah Jazz and several others, including a stake in the Washington Wizards, which it acquired in December. It bought an 8 percent stake in the Los Angeles Chargers last year and also holds shares in the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs. It also has a percentage of the soccer giant PSG.