While much of the conversation regarding the state of the regional sports networks is understandably doomstruck, the ardency with which fans continue to engage with their hometown should not be overlooked. Bankruptcy woes and the acceleration of cord-cutting may have cast a long shadow over the future of the RSN model, but the business of selling local sports has never been better.
The Nielsen ratings alone would suggest that live sports is weathering the slow-moving storm that is the transition from linear TV to the wilds of streaming, and the concomitant erosion in GRPs that are a function of the gradual shift from one screen to the next. On a local level, sports are stickier than ever; whereas regular-season NBA deliveries in 2022-23 inched down 1%—across TNT, ESPN and ABC, deliveries of the national telecasts averaged 1.59 million viewers, off from the year-ago 1.61 million—the RSNs in the same period managed to grow their pro hoops base.
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From the opening tipoff on Oct. 18 through the close of the regular season on April 9, local NBA deliveries were up 2% versus the year-ago campaign, giving the RSNs their highest turnout in five seasons. The NBA’s gains were solid across both extremes of the demographic spectrum, with the highly coveted adults 18-34 set improving 4% versus 2021-22, while fans in the 25-54 range also grew 4%.
In comparison to the national telecasts on the broadcast and cable networks, the NBA’s performance on the RSN level is particularly impressive. When weighted by market size and duration, the RSNs averaged 39,801 household impressions per NBA game, topping the deliveries for TNT (26,342) and ESPN (20,531). In other words, on an in-market basis, the local sports nets are drawing a larger crowd of NBA fans than are their much larger TV rivals.
In some markets, the local RSN outdraws the in-market NBA coverage on TNT and ESPN by a factor of three. For instance, the Golden State Warriors this season averaged 132,286 households per game on NBC Sports Bay Area, eclipsing the 42,309 local households that tuned into TNT’s competitive coverage. (ESPN managed an even more niche turnout, averaging 27,043 households per NBA game in the Warriors’ home market, which includes 2.59 million TV homes.)
A similar dynamic held sway Back East, as the Celtics averaged 89,365 impressions on NBC Sports Boston, more than doubling the combined performance of TNT and ESPN. The Boston DMA is one step up the rung from San Francisco, ranking ninth among all markets with a base of some 2.6 million TV households.
While larger markets tend to draw proportionately bigger numbers—repeating the No. 1 and No. 2 DMAs with a combined base just shy of 11 million TV homes, the Knicks and Lakers tuck in just behind the Celtics on the local NBA ratings front—some of the biggest year-to-year gains were made in slightly less hegemonic cities.
For example, having sewn up the top seed in the Eastern Conference with a 58-24 record, the Milwaukee Bucks saw their ratings on Bally Sports Wisconsin jump 40% to 31,741 homes per game. In Sacramento, the Kings scared up a big crowd on their way to securing their first playoff berth in 16 years, boosting their deliveries on NBC Sports California by a whopping 69%.
The NBA’s robust local ratings were tallied during a period in which 6.25 million subscribers to the traditional pay-TV bundle cut the cord. In fact, the RSNs’ gains were racked up as the number of bundled homes fell by 9%, and overall TV usage declined by 11%.
“The regional networks are pressured on the subscriber side, but as far as brand engagement and fan interest are concerned, the numbers are still incredibly strong,” said Craig Sloan, who as COO of Playfly Sports oversees ad sales and sponsorships for every RSN in the country.
The connection that fans have with their hometown teams is a bond that is unlikely to give way to the vicissitudes of rising cable rates; as such, there’s a significant overlap among consumers who’ve stuck with the bundle and their overall consumption of live sports. (The hit-or-miss reliability of streaming certainly makes a compelling argument for staying true to your area pay-TV provider.) While the acceleration in cord-cutting presents all sorts of complications on the rights side, the fact that the local NBA (and MLB and NHL) deliveries continue to grow in the face of all the contraction on the distribution end suggests that sports fans are holding their ground during the great screen shift.
This outsized enthusiasm for the home team persists in places as frenzied and overrun with entertainment options as New York and LA, which speaks to the intensity of our collective fandom. Although as the Nielsen data demonstrates, the sports mania that’s on display in the smaller markets is just as rabid.
“When you catch a wave of people who are really inspired by a team in a market and there’s that communal component that goes along with intense fandom, you have that variance where you can double the size of the audience,” Sloan said. “And while generally speaking we need our big markets to be winning at a high rate, the enthusiasm in smaller areas like Sacramento right now is palpable. I mean, they’re out of their minds, and that’s just one market.”
As much as the RSN model remains under siege, the sheer volume of impressions those channels serve up over the course of an NBA season aren’t to be taken lightly. The NBA’s next rights deal may call for a radical shift away from the legacy TV model, but as long as media impressions (and team revenues) remain driven by local deliveries, it would be foolhardy to count out the RSNs just yet.
While still very much a work-in-progress, streaming is showing signs of pulling in new viewers without cannibalizing the core TV product. Authenticated NBA streaming impressions grew 30% this season, an increase which coincided with the gains on the old-fangled TV end. Even without a reliable reading into Bally Sports’ direct-to-consumer deliveries, the takeaway is clear. Digital is not diminishing the consumption of televised sports—at least not at the RSN level.
The proof lies in how the RSNs stack up against the local broadcast and cable competition.
“For us, 2017 was an inflection point, the year we first out-delivered the average primetime 18-49 audience,” Sloan said. “The RSNs may look small in comparison to the local [broadcast] affiliates, but the aggregation of that audience is now better in the demo by a good margin. And a lot of that has to do with the communal nature of sports, of how it’s sort of the last thing that we’re all still watching together.”
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