NEW YORK – The season tipped off on Oct 24 with stars including LeBron James and Nikola Jokic beginning the long quest for a National Basketball Association (NBA) title.

But the action that will have longer-term ramifications for the league, and the media and entertainment landscape, is happening off the court.

The companies holding the rights to show NBA games – Walt Disney, which owns ESPN and ABC, and Warner Bros Discovery, parent company of TNT – are collectively paying the league US$24 billion (S$32.8 billion) over nine years for that privilege.

But their contracts expire after next season, and the NBA hopes to more than double the money it receives for rights in the next deal, according to several people familiar with the league’s expectations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations.

It will not get that without a fight. After decades in which sports leagues garnered ever-bigger piles of money for the rights to show their games, there are signs that media and technology companies are under increasing pressure to justify the exorbitant amounts they spend on broadcast rights.

Interest rates are high, Wall Street is demanding profitability over growth, and streaming has reconfigured the entertainment industry.

The result of the NBA’s negotiations will say a lot about the future of broadcast networks, the cable bundle, streaming services and the sports media ambitions of technology companies.

The National Football League, the most valuable sports league in the world, did not quite double its rights fees when it signed new agreements in 2021. And that was before the stock market declined, interest rates rose and wars began in Europe and the Middle East.

Disney and Warner Bros Discovery, which have televised NBA games for more than two decades, are not necessarily in positions to shell out lots of cash, either.

Disney has carried out extreme cost-cutting and layoffs in 2023, and chief executive officer Robert Iger has said the company is considering “strategic options” to sell equity in ESPN. Warner Bros Discovery has also cut costs.

The most likely scenario, according to the people familiar with the negotiations, is that Disney and Warner Bros Discovery will sign new agreements with the NBA to televise fewer games. The NBA declined to comment for this article.

The two companies together show about 160 regular-season games each year, as well as the play-offs and NBA Finals. NYTIMES