The collapse of regional sports networks and accelerating cord-cutting is impacting every major sports league, but the NBA believes its younger fan base has made the league’s situation even worse.

“We recognize that, in some ways, the decline of cable has disproportionately impacted the NBA,” commissioner Adam Silver told Yahoo Sports. “Our young audience isn’t subscribing to cable, and those fans aren’t finding our games.”

Silver’s comments arrive at a particularly delicate time for the league, which is now in the market for a new set of domestic media rights deals at a reported goal of $75 billion.

On a local level, teams such as the Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns have already moved to broadcast-based models due to the rapid changes in the RSN market. Many of the same issues the NBA is grappling with are also significantly coloring Disney’s ongoing search for potential equity partners for ESPN, a key league partner.

To address the shifts, Silver said the next set of national rights deals will involve a mix of broadcast, cable, and streaming partners — reconfirming growing expectations in the market. 

“There are still roughly 65 million homes in America that are consuming sports in a very traditional way, and even more people on network TV. Is that declining? Yes. Is that going away anytime soon? I don’t believe so. So we want to be on all those platforms,” Silver said.

Among the particularly notable streaming contenders for NBA rights is Amazon, which wants to create a NBA version of its successful “Thursday Night Football” offering — which draws an average viewer eight years younger than the NFL’s linear average.

With a long-awaited stadium deal now in place, the Tampa Bay Rays are pushing to start construction as soon as possible.

Appearing before the St. Petersburg City Council on Thursday, Rays co-president Brian Auld said the club aims to obtain all needed government approvals by March 2024 in order to preserve the planned spring 2028 opening of the new $1.3 billion ballpark.

“If we miss that opening date, this entire endeavor becomes impossible,” Auld said. “We cannot put these dates at risk along the way.”

The ballpark will be the centerpiece of a planned $6.5 billion, 86-acre mixed-use development in St. Petersburg’s Gas Plant District. The Rays will pay $700 million toward the stadium, as well as any cost overruns, while the public sector will contribute $600 million. 

The stadium project presents a key test of the Rays’ ability to draw fans, particularly following historically low attendance totals during the club’s brief playoff run this season.

Royals Angst

Another lower-revenue MLB club seeks to transform its situation with a new ballpark — but the Kansas City Royals are again in the crosshairs of local angst surrounding planned public-sector contribution toward their proposed $2 billion new stadium. 

After Jackson County, Missouri, executive Frank White was given a 48-hour deadline to respond to the Royals’ latest term-sheet offer, a memo obtained by the Kansas City Star suggested the stadium will actually cost between $4.4 billion and $6.4 billion — much of it shouldered by taxpayers when including interest and insurance costs.

That report quickly generated a public rebuke from Kansas City mayor Quinton Lucas.

“Nothing I have ever seen about a new Royals stadium even remotely suggests the cost will be between $4 billion and $6 billion,” Lucas posted on X. “That would place it as one of the most expensive stadiums ever built in the history of the U.S. There are many reasons not to like a deal, but good-faith negotiations should be expected on the community’s behalf. I’m seeing anything but.”

La Liga giants Real Madrid are looking to borrow $390 million from institutional investors, exacerbating some thorny financial issues at the top levels of Spanish soccer.

Just days after a new financial report from rival FC Barcelona revealed mounting debt issues, Real Madrid is turning to private debt markets to help finance a nearly complete renovation of its Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

The 75-year-old venue is in the midst of a series of upgrades, including an expansion of its seating capacity, a new facade, and an installation of a removable pitch to accommodate non-soccer events.

The club’s turn to private lenders is seen as a move to create more privacy and stability around the transaction, something other top European clubs have done, including Barcelona. Funds are set to be repaid from future ticket revenue.

Unlike Barcelona, Real Madrid has been able to stay profitable through the pandemic and since, reporting a $13.25 million after-tax profit in July for the 2022-23 financial year. The club, however, has also been at odds with La Liga on behind-the-scenes media access that would have garnered the team an additional $14.2 million.

Real Madrid’s additional debt will require approval by club partners, and the matter has been put on the agenda for a Nov. 11 meeting.