COMMISSIONER SILVER: Thank you for being here. I'm very excited to announce we are extending our partnerships with Time Warner and ESPN for another nine years. These agreements will extend our existing partnerships through the 2024 25 season, and will bring the total length of our relationships to 41 years with Turner, 23 years with ESPN and 17 years for NBA Digital with Turner.
I want to especially thank Bob Iger, the chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company; Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner chairman and CEO; John Martin, the chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting and of course my long time partners and close friends at ESPN and Turner Sports who led their respective teams in getting these extensions done, John Skipper and David Levy.
I also want to recognize all of the owners on the Media Committee led by its chairman and Wizards owner, Ted Leonsis who I'm very happy to have with me here today. The media members, the committee members combined with a group of team presidents on our media advisory committee representing 13 NBA teams and they all worked tirelessly flying to meetings all over the country, making trips to both Atlanta and Bristol.
Those owners on the committee working with Ted included Clay Bennett of the Oklahoma City Thunder, Jim Dolan of the New York Knicks, Wyc Grousbeck of the Boston Celtics, Peter Holt of the San Antonio Spurs, Greg Miller of the Utah Jazz, Michael Reinsdorf of the Chicago Bulls, and our chairman of our NBA Board of Governors, Glen Taylor of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
I also want to thank the Team Advisory Committee, which included Tad Brown of the Houston Rockets, Len Komoroski of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Alex Martins of the Orlando Magic, Peter McLoughlin of the Portland Trail Blazers, Terdema Ussery of the Dallas Mavericks, and Eric Woolworth from the Miami Heat.
From the league office, I want to especially thank Bill Koenig, who is here in the front row this morning, our NBA president of global media distribution; and the dedicated and extraordinary narrowly hard working team he had including Danny Meiseles, who is also here this morning, David Denenberg, our senior vice president of global media distribution, and my deputy commissioner, Mark Tatum.
We decided to renew our agreements with Turner and Disney two years early because they have been terrific partners and they each share responsibility for the tremendous growth and popularity of our game. With these new agreements, our passionate fans will continue to benefit from the exceptional NBA coverage and programming provided by ABC, ESPN, TNT, NBA TV, along with their digital platforms.
A few highlights of these new agreements: For the first time, ESPN will televise NBA D League and Summer League games and TNT will host an annual awards show, end of season awards show.
The WNBA has extended its relationship with ESPN through 2025. And ESPN will launch an over the top offering in which the league will have an equity interest, and that over the top offering is going to be a new service designed to reach mobile consumers with NBA content and potentially other sports properties, as well.
Turner will offer an enhanced NBA content for multiple Turner platforms, and most significantly for its Bleacher Report. To us these new agreements demonstrate the value of live sports in a DVR world, particularly NBA content, WNBA content and D League content, which continues to captivate fans on a nightly basis.
Lastly I'll just say, our game has never been better. We can't wait till opening week. Tuesday, October 28 is our opening night when we tip off a doubleheader on TNT with the Mavericks at the Spurs, followed by the Rockets at the Lakers. And then on Wednesday night of that week, October 29, ESPN starts its NBA coverage with the Knicks playing at home against the Bulls followed by the Thunder traveling to Portland to play the Trail Blazers.
TNT Thursday night, October 30, has the Cavaliers hosting the Knicks and then the Thunder head to L.A. to play the Clippers. And ESPN ends the first week with a Halloween doubleheader featuring the Cavs visiting the Bulls, and the Lakers against the Clippers.
I don't want to leave out NBA TV. We also have three great games that weekend. It's going to be an amazing week of NBA action, and none of us can wait. It's been an exciting summer, a lot of player movement and great anticipation about this coming season.
We are thrilled to extend these highly successful relationships with our long time partners, and look forward to a new era of NBA basketball. With that, I'd like to introduce Ted Leonsis, our chairman of the Media Committee.
TED LEONSIS: Thank you, Adam. Good morning, thank you very much to Adam Silver and Bill Koenig and the NBA league offices for their tireless and great work on getting these agreements reached.
There's never been a better time to be a basketball fan, be it of the NBA, WNBA or the D League. There's never been a better time to be an owner of an NBA franchise or frankly any professional sports team. We see the power of our content to bring together in real time social settings very large and growing passionate audiences on a global basis. The players are charismatic, and with our world class media partners, we know they will be presented in the right way.
This is an exciting day for all of us who have worked so diligently to extend these partnerships. I want to personally give a huge thank you for the hard working team at Disney and Turner, led by John Skipper and David Levy.
David has great touch for us on production quality and has led all of our work in digital programming. And John, I have to say personally, has done unbelievable work with us, also with the WNBA, and we'll talk about women's basketball and extending our reach to year round with both WNBA and the D League.
Also want to acknowledge Walt Disney's chairman and CEO Bob Iger, appreciate the time that he spent with Adam and I and the committee and Time Warner's chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, for their company's commitment to the NBA and its fans. Also need to recognize, as Adam noted, the fellow members of the Board of Governors, Media Committee, along with all of the team presidents. This was a collective agreement and it was wonderful to hear so many voices with such diverse opinions.
Thirteen teams are represented between the two committees and they all did an outstanding job. We have a remarkable group of owners in this league. They are some of the smartest and most accomplished businessmen in the world and they represent markets of all sizes, many of whom have experience in the media business. And those owners were able to bring their business acumen to these negotiations.
There's never been this level of commitment and involvement from the teams in this kind of process, and we are very proud of this collaborative result, which we think will benefit the league and its fans for years to come. We're all very excited about the league's future. This is a great way to launch another nine years of our partnership and on behalf of my fellow others, we can't wait to tip off the season. Thank you very much.
DAVID LEVY: On behalf of my Turner Broadcasting colleagues, I couldn't be happier than to be here today to announce the extension of our partnership with the NBA.
Turner and the NBA first started working together in 1984, and I have to say, it was a priority for our company to extend this important business relationship. By the time this deal was completed, the NBA and Turner will be together for more than 40 years, and that's a long time for any relationship, let alone between a sports league and a media company.
This deal is significant for Turner and locks in some of the most valuable and premium sports programming well into the next decade. The NBA has been a consistent and strong property for us and the brand continues to deliver on so many levels.
When you look at it from a ratings perspective, the NBA on TNT holds nine of the Top 10 programs airing on the network. The ratings are consistently good during the regular season and even stronger during the playoffs.
You heard me talk about this many times about winning nights at television in key demos. Well, that's what this property does, especially during the playoffs. Each year the playoffs helps TNT win nights of television during the all important May sweeps. With more playoff games on TNT than any other network, we look forward to that tradition to continue.
Deals of this nature do not get done without plenty of help and assistance. I want to thank Adam Silver, Mark Tatum, Bill Koenig, Danny Meiseles and the staff at the NBA for their excellent work and for their partnership.
I'd also like to acknowledge two key individuals from Time Warner and Turner, Jeff Bewkes and John Martin for their continued support and their relationship.
I also want to recognize a few individuals from my team, including Lenny Daniels, John Cooper, Tina Shaw, Christina Miller, Matt Hong and Valerie Immele. I'm extremely proud of the effort they put into getting this deal done and I promise you it wouldn't have been done without them.
And Skip, congratulations on ESPN completing their deal, as well. Look forward to continuing our partnership, as well.
The details of this partnership are really in the press release, so I don't want to spend too much time to go over all the deal points. But this is a multi faceted package that includes television, digital and TV everywhere rights. Additionally we'll have the ability for new ad sales enhancements, including the opportunity to run a new NBA Awards Show that Adam spoke about very briefly.
It's worth noting that TNT will have an additional 12 regular season games that will air on another night of the week other than Thursday. The games will start the second half of the season and will feature marquee matchups of key teams that are looking to secure a postseason berth.
We are also proud that Turner will continue its business relationship with the NBA to manage the league's extensive digital portfolio including NBA TV, NBA.com and League Pass. We have committed considerable resources to develop and expand the content across the portfolio, and that investment is paying off with the fans.
Finally, I want to take a moment and mention the rights we have secured for Bleacher Report. Turner acquired Bleacher Report in 2012 and this brand has grown tremendously, especially with millennials. With the enhanced rights we have secured, it will allow us to provide NBA content to Bleacher Report's growing, engaged fan base around the NBA.
Again we are excited about our continuing relationship with the NBA and look forward to serving our mutual fans well into the next decade.
JOHN SKIPPER: Thank you. We're very well prepped for this meeting, including Mike Bass handed me something right before I got up here that suggested it would be on stage facing the audience. So I appreciate that, Mike, because there's only a one in four chance I would have gotten that right. (Laughter) but I did. It makes a lot of difference. You know, it's a lot better. (Laughter).
I want to thank Ted and the owners for their participation. Did you hear that they made the trip up to Bristol, Connecticut? We appreciate that.
I want to congratulate David Levy and his team, they are a pleasure to have as co partners with the NBA and we enjoy working with them, and congratulations, David. Did sound like they went above your and my heads though, with Jeff and Bob. (Laughter).
And of course mostly I want to thank Adam and Bill and their team at the NBA who are a pleasure to work with, and we're thrilled to be in partnership with them for nine more years in addition to the two we still have.
And I have to thank my team at ESPN which did an exceptional job. You guys don't know how many sleepless nights have been had over the last week, 10 days, as people have stayed in the office. We have a lot of people at ESPN, so I'm not going to try to name names because I will inevitably forget somebody.
We are thrilled with this deal and it continues ESPN's long stated strategy to invest in a portfolio of live rights. And this is a key property for us given the ascendant nature of the league and allows us, along with the other rights that we hold, many of which we hold into the next century, to make sure that ESPN maintains its position in the sports media landscape.
And this deal, like all the deals we do, contemplates a broad swath of rights that allows us to build new businesses, to engage our fans on new technologies and new platforms, and if you look across all of our platforms, we have got a number of new rights in this deal. ESPN Audio, we have more games on an exclusive national we are the exclusive broadcast home for their radio rights.
ESPN International, we have significant new rights in Latin America, Australia and New Zealand and the Caribbean. Deportes, the Hispanic initiative is crucial for both the NBA and ESPN. We had our best year ever on ESPN Deportes in Spanish language; for ESPN our largest Hispanic audiences in English on ESPN ever on for the Finals last year between the Spurs and the Heat and we hope to build upon that.
And you heard Adam mentioned other NBA product that's important to us, the WNBA, the D League, the Summer League. All of those things allow us to make a year round presentation of the NBA. We acquired over 750 new studio hours that allow us to present pre draft, pre camps, pre trades, moves that the teams make and fans now care year round about the NBA and what is going on. We can build on that.
We are thrilled with the position of the NBA right now. They have ascendant stars, more competition than ever within the league. We had our highest four rating years in the history of our relationship with the league on ESPN the last four years. We believe we will build upon that with turner and with our friends at the NBA.
You heard Adam talk about the OTT, the over the top offering that we look forward to making with the team. We have established a framework to do so. It is part of our exploration to continue to serve fans where they are.
I know it will come up inevitably about what this means for the current pay television universe. I would point out the preponderance of our deal is to invest in new product that goes on pay television, and that we continue to do so and we'll continue to do that while we explore new ways to reach fans. There is no contradiction in continuing to enhance and buttress the current system while building new businesses and new ways to reach fans. We think they are complementary, we applaud the NBA for being a very forward thinking league and helping us do that across all of our platforms.
So in summation, which it probably says somewhere on these pieces of paper; in summation, we are thrilled with this. We are thrilled to remain partners with the league and look forward to the years between now and '24 '25. Thank you very much.
Read Part 2 HERE
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