In case you weren’t aware, Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer isn’t just merely an ebullient ball of enthusiasm that passionately rallies his troops by sweating through dress shirts, screaming out “HARDCORE” at the top of his lungs, and dancing boisterously to Fergie songs. The former Microsoft CEO also brings to the table a ton of innovative business practices and visions for the franchise. Now, his latest potential venture may reshape the way we consume the sport of basketball entirely.
According to a report on Friday by Claire Atkinson of the New York Post, Ballmer recently turned down a local TV deal that would have paid roughly $60 million per year. The bid was made by Fox Sports’ Prime Ticket, the network that currently holds the Clippers’ TV rights through the 2015-16 season and was looking to renew their partnership with the team. So why did Ballmer opt to reject the offer? Well for one, $60 million a year is an almost-insulting lowball offer for a title-contending team in the hallowed Los Angeles market. Keep in mind that the Lakers got $3 billion from Time Warner in a 20-year deal (equivalent to $150 million a year) and that $60 million a year probably feels like chump change for a guy that spent $2 freakin’ billion to buy the team.
But Ballmer’s ulterior motive in declining the offer could be that he has bigger aspirations in mind. The report also goes on to state that Ballmer is looking into the possibility of launching his own over-the-top streaming network and airing Clipper games direct-to-consumer via the World Wide Web. He would be the first owner of a major US sports team to proceed down that path, and it’s an intriguing proposition to say the least.
Streaming media is the future, and especially in the Netflix era, that future is creeping up on us a lot sooner than we think. Content may be king but convenience and accessibility are quickly becoming prince. With a growing number of NBA League Pass subscribers opting for broadband and the increase in popularity of streaming basketball services such as Ballstreams, Ballmer could be onto something here. And capitalizing on a viral market trend before it explodes completely is a stroke of technological genius that one would fully expect from a man who spent 14 years at the helm of one of the biggest and most successful tech corporations in the world. Perhaps Ballmer’s forward-thinking pioneering will help him become the Los Angeles sports mogul that this area has historically lacked. Not to mention that it could transform the NBA as we know it.
Of course, this metamorphosis of our basketball experience would be risky. The league already has no idea what to do with itself now that all the TV revenue is almost here to blow the salary cap to smithereens. Rocking the boat even further with a mysterious new broadcast venture could be revolutionary, but it could just destabilize the financial landscape of the NBA. If the rest of the league follows Ballmer’s footsteps into this risky startup, there’s no telling what it could mean for leaguewide revenue, broadcast partnerships, and the constant wrangling between owners and players over the collective bargaining agreement. Could Ballmer’s visionary endeavor be the tipping point that pushes us over the edge into another lockout?
In the end, all this speculation may be in vain as the report does say that Ballmer could just be using this as a threat, a bargaining ploy to get more dough out of Prime Ticket. A Clippers spokesman did tell the New York Post, “Steve Ballmer is exploring any and all options, including a new deal with Fox.” But this will at least plant the seed in our minds that in due time, we could be consuming our NBA Basketball the same way that we stream our favorite TV shows on Netflix or on Hulu. What a damn time to be alive.
