“We recognize that, in some ways, the decline of cable has disproportionately impacted the NBA,” Silver told Kendall Baker of Yahoo Sports AM. “Our young audience isn’t subscribing to cable, and those fans aren’t finding our games.
But 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 of those platforms.”
Apple wants an all-or-nothing deal for sports — worldwide distribution, no blackouts, standardized pricing for everyone, the whole shabang. That’s why they currently have MLS, and why they do not have NFL Sunday Ticket. If the NBA is going to continue being greedy, cutting partial deals with multiple parties and countries for just a slice then they’re going to continue losing viewers. Only the NFL is powerful enough to get fans to seek out games wherever they are.