As the local broadcast market reeled in uncertainty across the country in recent months, one major regional sports network syndicate went bankrupt and another went out of business altogether, the Utah Jazz were looking for a new way to distribute their games. Where the franchise has ended up is not only what team owner Ryan Smith calls an “entirely new model” for broadcasting games across the NBA, but it could also be a sign of what’s to come for others in the league.
The Jazz will air all of their non-national television games next season in two locations, on free over-the-air television locally on KJZZ and online with a new direct-to-consumer stream for theirs Fans to reach their fans as many viewers as possible. It’s a clear departure from the TV model that NBA teams have favored for years, trading cable funds to maximize the number of homes they can reach.
“If your TV has rabbit ears,” Smith said in an interview with The Athletic, “you can get jazz games.”
“The Jazz” has aired on AT&T SportsNet in previous seasons, but the network was owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which retired from the RSN industry this spring. The team’s contract with AT&T SportsNet was due to expire at the end of the 2022-23 season and the team was already looking for a new TV home.
Now it will try to expand its audience as much as possible. The franchise has formed a new media division, SEG Media, within Smith Entertainment Group and will produce jazz games and other content that will reportedly be exclusive to the team and its new channels. Matches will be broadcast locally on KJZZ channel 14 on the watch face. Salt Lake City’s CBS affiliate, KUTV-2, will also have the rights to air jazz games and content, although most games will air on KJZZ; Both channels are owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. SEG Media will produce the games – bringing Craig Bolerjack, Thurl Bailey and Holly Rowe back to the air – and sell advertising for them.
The new, as yet unnamed, direct-to-consumer product will allow fans to access games through the team’s website and an app. It will be available with a paid subscription throughout the state and within a 150 mile radius of Salt Lake City – jazz’s local market. Smith said the Jazz would also be pushing for their games to be allowed to be streamed in external markets as well, although that’s still a goal and not a certainty yet, and could conflict with the NBA League Pass, which the league will restrict access to sells out-of-market games in their out-markets.
Smith wanted to increase access to jazz games. He said only 39 percent of Utah homes could watch games when he bought the team in 2020, but believes this new path could result in a five to seven-fold increase in viewership.
The move to wireless broadcasting at home and away from a cable RSN will likely come with reduced revenue for the franchise. These regional sports networks, while becoming increasingly unreliable, brought significant revenue to teams. But RSNs have stalled across the country in 2023. Diamond Sports Group, which owns the rights to 16 NBA teams, filed for bankruptcy in February. It also stripped the rights to the San Diego Padres and stopped payments to four other teams.
Smith described this switch as a step backwards and a step forward for the franchise as his sports group focuses on producing and selling advertising to make up for lost revenue.
“Can you wake up and look at yourself and your fans in the mirror when you have 39 percent viewership?” Smith said. He added, “We’ve got to get creative and be thrifty about generating revenue … We know we’re going to take a short-term setback, but that’s where it’s going.” And I think if we do in five years looking back, everyone will say that what Utah accomplished was indeed incredible.”
It could be a harbinger of how NBA teams approach their local broadcasts and be part of the changing tides in the broader NBA media ecosystem. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in March he expected teams to adopt a hybrid transmission approach. The Phoenix Suns announced in April that the franchise would be leaving a Diamond Sports-owned RSN in favor of its own combination of a free-to-air network and the DTC option, although that was put on hold due to a legal battle between the Suns and Diamond Sports . (The Jazz say the franchise has received all the necessary approvals from the NBA to go ahead with its plan.)
The Clippers broadcast their games last season on their own $199-a-year DTC product, ClipperVision, while games also aired on their local RSN. MSG Networks, home of the New York Knicks, and YES Network, which carries the Nets, have announced their own direct-to-consumer apps to give fans more choice when watching games.
Smith said there are no pricing yet for a digital subscription to watch Jazz. MSG+ will have monthly ($29.99), yearly ($309.99), and game passes ($9.99) and will carry a total of five pro teams. YES Network also broadcasts Yankees and Liberty games and charges $24.99 per month and $239.99 per year. Some fans were initially pale in the face of these costs.
Those networks, Smith said, operated on a model where they were not allowed to undercut their own cable networks and had to set prices accordingly. According to Smith, jazz does not have to worry about these considerations. Still, he adds that there are costs of its own to consider, including setting up a DTC operation, and that the price will try to balance affordability without undercutting NBA League Pass prices. The Jazz may consider adding sweeteners such as tickets or gift bags to attract subscriptions or make them more attractive.
“That doesn’t mean we won’t have the same prices,” he said. “But the reason things are happening this way is because of agreements with the broader treaties. We need to thread that needle.”
If that works well with Jazz, he could expand the DTC model to other parts of his sporting empire, Smith said. He owns stakes in Real Salt Lake and the Utah Royals, an NWSL team due out in 2024, and owns the G-League team the Jazz. He also wants to bring an NHL team to his state.
For now, though, Smith’s focus is on making jazz as popular as possible. He believes the team is well positioned and not burdened by an RSN deal that is in financial purgatory to continue to develop on its own.
(Photo by Jazz Bear in Utah: Garrett Ellwood/NBAE via Getty Images)