Charles Barkley’s NBA Accessibility Concerns Come Years Too Late

While talking on The Bill Simmons Podcast this week, Charles Barkley shared his concerns about the new NBA TV deal. Specifically, how it creates accessibility issues for NBA fans, all in the pursuit of more money.

There’s some credence to the idea.

After years of the NBA largely being split between linear TV networks ABC, ESPN and TNT (with some NBA TV sprinkled in), the new rights deal will be far more streaming-centric. National NBA games will appear seven nights per week, with some appearing exclusively on streaming services Amazon Prime Video and Peacock.

Barkley’s argument is that by splitting the television rights into more pieces and putting some behind additional streaming paywalls, it becomes harder for many NBA fans to tune in. And thus, hurts the game in the long run.(and Simmons largely echoes this as well during the conversation).

The problem here, of course, is that these concerns come years too late.

NBA’s March Toward More

The criticisms here come from a good place. Barkley (and Simmons) expresses concern for the common fan’s wallet and attention span as they try to traverse this new landscape. He blames the league’s pursuit of money, though, when TNT parent company Warner Bros. Discovery submitted a matching offer to Amazon’s portion of the deal. And realistically, even continuing with games appearing on TNT would have likely included games appearing on HBO Max (perhaps exclusively).

Money was certainly part of the equation for the NBA. But the bigger drive was simply “more.”

With the new media rights arrangement, the NBA has 75 additional national TV games this season, with some of those appearing exclusively on streaming services. Key here, however, is that there are still more national games. And crucially, more national games on networks virtually everyone has – broadcast channels ABC and NBC.

Amid the talk of more fractured rights, Barkley also misses the part where the NBA actually makes efforts to ensure the league is more accessible here, even while increasing its revenues. As cable loses subscribers, that inherently cuts off access to networks like TNT. Broadcast networks like NBC, meanwhile, are available in more homes than any cable network. And NBC has the existing infrastructure to air games on Peacock (either via simulcast or exclusively) as well.

By putting a portion of games exclusively on streaming, the NBA is maximizing its value and its ability to reach as many homes as possible. In some ways, it’s similar to the playbook followed by the most successful sports entity in the country: The NFL.

Football Already Did This

For one, the band-aid has already been ripped off when it comes to fracturing sports audiences. The NFL tested out streaming games for years before giving Amazon Prime Video exclusivity over Thursday Night Football. There were complaints. Then fans adapted. And now it’s an accepted part of the weekly NFL viewing experience.

Netflix’s initial foray into NFL games was the same last year as well. But audiences adapted. And tuned in en masse, as Netflix themselves would tell you (with the league’s blessing).

The counterpoint to this is that there are far fewer NFL games per week, and far fewer streaming games for the NFL than there are for the NBA. Yet, when Barkley is attempting to protect these “regular fans,” how many of them really have the ability to watch two or more games seven nights per week?

NBA Viewership Was Different As It Is

NBA games are already more regional than the NFL, with over half of every NBA team’s games appear on their respective regional sports network or streamer. Without nationalizing the whole product, the weekly streaming games the NBA is embracing here could potentially have minimal impact for the common fan.

For many, they’ll tune into the national games (including the ones now on NBC), plus their own local team through their regional network. If they want more than that, they’re not necessarily a “regular” fan.

Rather, they’re more of a diehard viewer. In which case they were potentially subscribed to NBA League Pass already, for the relatively low cost of $109.99 for the season, for every out-of-market game. For those that invested in watching every second of NBA action, they’ll subscribe to Peacock and Amazon Prime – assuming they haven’t done so already during football season.

Ultimately, while Barkley’s idea here is a noble one, televised sports started cutting itself into pieces years ago in order to maximize revenues. And then again after 2020, as streaming became a bigger part of the TV landscape.

If the cries to help the common fan were relatively silent then, what’s the truly new and pressing need for them today?