Big Guys, Little Screens

An article in the Los Angeles Times discussed the National Basketball Association's eight-year, $7.4 billion television and Internet contract. The deal between the NBA and ABC/ESPN/TNT gives the league a healthy raise even though TV audience numbers for professional basketball are going down. The recent NBA Finals between San Antonio and Cleveland, for example, averaged 9.3 viewers per game versus as many as 29 million viewers per game during the heyday of Michael Jordan in the 1990s.

A fair chunk of the $7.4 billion will go for various online rights. Many younger sports fans follow their favorite teams online instead of on TV.

Gabcast! Club MediaNote #67



Our final exam study session on Tuesday was helped considerably by SI Leader Mike Arvizu and a really big pizza.