A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman, which brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. I spent last weekend in San Francisco for the NBA’s All-Star game, which doubles as a convention for league and media executives to get together and talk about the future of the game. The most common topic I discussed was how the industry has to adjust to keep younger viewers interested. There’s near universal agreement among league and media decision makers that Generation Alpha (roughly defined as people born between 2010 and 2025) has little interest in watching live games. They’ll watch highlights in YouTube Shorts or TikTok form, and they want to see their favorite creators talk about the NBA or do stunts with players. But they’ve grown up in a media era where attention spans have gotten so short that the idea of watching a two- or three-hour live game with commercials seems laughably arcane. Along with the leagues, Disney’s ESPN is the most at risk if younger viewers don’t evolve into game watchers. The network’s entire business is predicated on live viewing. Disney has committed tens of billions of dollars in live sports contracts – more than any other company. ESPN will debut its bet-the-company “flagship” application this fall. One interesting nugget I learned: ESPN will build user-generated content (UGC) into the platform. I’m still a bit hazy on the details, but I reported back in July that Disney executives think about the YouTube threat “every day” and were discussing adding UGC to Disney+. An ESPN spokesperson declined to comment. I’m told at least some of the UGC won’t be ready at initial launch and will be geared toward parents – or at least a shared experience between kids and parents. That makes sense. While Gen Alpha has easy access to YouTube because it’s free, it’ll be up to their parents to pay for the ESPN application – $25 or $30 a month, I’m told. Executives are still weighing the right price between those two options. A price, a launch date, and a name for the service are all coming in the next few months. For the name, some executives have suggested simply calling the service “ESPN” while sunsetting the ESPN+ brand to a cheaper tier of sports content. That may be more of a possibility than a probability, but it’s an idea they’re kicking around. “The ‘new’ television doesn’t look like the ‘old’ television,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan wrote in his annual letter last week. “It’s interactive and includes things like Shorts (yes, people watch them on TVs), podcasts, and live streams, right alongside the sports, sitcoms and talk shows people already love.” You’re seeing this reality creep into the NBA’s strategy. The All-Star game was shortened into multiple mini-games, each ending when a team scored 40 points. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recently mused about shortening quarters from 12 minutes to 10 minutes. YouTube’s biggest star, Mr. Beast , joined All-Star weekend live from the Chase Center with one of his $100,000 contests. The question for the league – and media companies – is if Gen Alpha’s trend away from watching full games is irreversible or simply a product of age. The league has some evidence that gambling (legalized age: 18) increases live viewership. This is one of the reasons Silver has been a consistent advocate for legalized gambling. That’s why ESPN is also leaning heavily on integrating gambling into its flagship streaming service. In conjunction with ESPN Bet, powered by Penn Entertainment, fans who watch ESPN through the new app will be able to see betting information on the screen along with the live game. If Mohan is right, and YouTube inalterably changes the definition of TV, it totally upends the business of sports. The cost of live game rights, which just sold for $77 billion over the next 11 years for the NBA, could plummet. Alternatively, the cost of highlight access could soar. This isn’t likely to happen any time soon. Even the oldest of Gen Alpha turn 15 this year. But it’s clearly on the minds of decision makers – many of whom have kids who aren’t sitting down at the TV to watch live sports. On the record With former Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro and journalist Armen Keteyian … I’m renting out this space to my good friend Sara Eisen , who spoke with former Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro and journalist Armen Keteyian , who just co-wrote “Legends and Soles: The Memoir of an American Original,” an autobiography of Vaccaro. Vaccaro leapt back into the spotlight two years ago when Matt Damon played him in the movie “Air,” the story of Nike signing Michael Jordan to his legendary endorsement deal. “Jordan was the first person to be marketed,” Vaccaro told Eisen. “This was seminal in 1984.” Keteyian noted that over the course of speaking with Vaccaro to write the book, he learned that longtime CBS broadcaster Billy Packer was instrumental in Nike signing Jordan. Packer helped to convince former Nike CEO Phil Knight to sign Jordan, whom Packer described as “the greatest basketball player he’d ever seen,” according to Keteyian. Watch the full interview and follow and listen to the new CNBC Sport podcast. CNBC Sport highlight reel The best of CNBC Sport from the past week: James Dolan ‘s MSG Networks owes $829 million in debt on March 26. Cable company Altice USA has blacked out regional games of the NBA’s New York Knicks (and the National Hockey League’s New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils) since January. That puts the future of the company in doubt. CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo has more. The San Francisco 49ers are the latest NFL team to consider selling a stake of up to 10%. The Niners want a valuation of about $9 billion for the stake. Hey Jed York , just let me know where to send the $900 million check. My concern is, and I have to, uh, check with my accountant, but that this might bump me into a higher, uh, tax bracket. CNBC’s Angelica Peebles spoke with former Dallas Mavericks controlling owner Mark Cuban and asked him his thoughts on the widely panned Luka Doncic – Anthony Davis trade. Cuban told her, “I would have done it differently.” The National Women’s Soccer League’s Portland Thorns FC announced a multiyear sponsorship with Amazon -owned home security firm Ring. The deal makes Ring the club’s primary sponsor and will include logo placement on player jerseys. It’s the largest kit deal in league history, CNBC’s Russell Leung learned . The big number: $550 million ESPN is likely to opt out of its Major League Baseball deal next month, according to people familiar with the matter. Currently, ESPN pays about $550 million per year for MLB rights. It’ll be interesting to see if another bidder, such as Amazon, is willing to top ESPN’s per-year rights fee on the open market. Quote of the week “If the answer is yes, then I definitely want the Sunday games.” – Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria to Puck’s Matt Belloni on his podcast The Town. I could write a whole newsletter on just this answer. On the one hand, Bajaria was playing a lightning round game with Belloni when she answered this, where Belloni led her into the premise by saying, “In five years, will Netflix air a weekly NFL game, and because the answer is obviously yes, which NFL package will you steal from a rival?” So she’s just playing along here by saying she wants the Sunday games – which she clarified to Sunday afternoon games, currently owned by Fox and CBS. In other words, Belloni asked her to choose a package, and she chose one. It’s not like she said this unprompted. But on the other hand, as Belloni said, well, duh! I wrote about this in the very first CNBC Sport newsletter – about how media executives are already freaking out about the end of the 2029-30 NFL season, when the league can opt out of its current deal. And Bajaria’s confirmation that Netflix would be most interested in the Sunday afternoon packages is yet another clue that everyone should basically ignore Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos ‘ stump speech on sports, which he reiterated again in his company’s latest earnings conference call. “It doesn’t really change the underlying economics of full-season big-league sports being extremely challenging,” Sarandos said last month . “So, if there was a path where we could actually make the economics work for both us and the league, we certainly would explore. But right now, we believe that the live events business is where we really want to be. And sports is a very important part of that, but it is a part of that expansion.” Buying a Sunday afternoon NFL package is as “full-season big-league sports” as you can get. Also, Netflix already acquired the live broadcast rights to WWE’s “Raw,” which I’d argue is full-season big-league sports. Netflix is soon going to have a shot at buying rights to UFC, Formula One and MLB. I can tell you, with certainty, that nearly every other major media sports executive views Netflix as a player for full-season big-league sports in nearly every future rights discussion to come. And that’s particularly true for the NFL – by far the most important sport for any media company. Around the league Hot take: The NBA still needs to fix the All-Star Game. The TNT-broadcast event averaged 4.7 million viewers, the second-least-watched game on record. The new, tournament-style format didn’t bring in a lot of eyeballs. It also didn’t help that LeBron James skipped the game. And for those of you who think the NBA All-Star Game is a lost cause, the NHL seems to have fixed its midseason spectacle: The league’s “4 Nations Face-Off” U.S.-Canada game had 4.4 million American viewers , walloping previous NHL All-Star game ratings, as Sportico notes . Want to rent Michael Jordan ‘s old house in Chicago? Now you can! NBC Sports reports Jordan’s old 37,000 square-foot Highland Park mansion is now available for rent at the low, low price of $230,000 a month. 2024 was another record year for the American sports betting industry, which took in $13.71 billion in revenue. That’s up from last year’s record of $11.04 billion, according to the American Gaming Association.
Victor Wembanyama #1 of the San Antonio Spurs signs autographs for Kai and Knox, children of Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick after the game at Crypto.com Arena on January 13, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Katelyn Mulcahy | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images
A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman, which brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
I spent last weekend in San Francisco for the NBA’s All-Star game, which doubles as a convention for league and media executives to get together and talk about the future of the game.
The most common topic I discussed was how the industry has to adjust to keep younger viewers interested. There’s near universal agreement among league and media decision makers that Generation Alpha (roughly defined as people born between 2010 and 2025) has little interest in watching live games. They’ll watch highlights in YouTube Shorts or TikTok form, and they want to see their favorite creators talk about the NBA or do stunts with players. But they’ve grown up in a media era where attention spans have gotten so short that the idea of watching a two- or three-hour live game with commercials seems laughably arcane.
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Along with the leagues, Disney’s ESPN is the most at risk if younger viewers don’t evolve into game watchers. The network’s entire business is predicated on live viewing. Disney has committed tens of billions of dollars in live sports contracts – more than any other company.
ESPN will debut its bet-the-company “flagship” application this fall. One interesting nugget I learned: ESPN will build user-generated content (UGC) into the platform. I’m still a bit hazy on the details, but I reported back in July that Disney executives think about the YouTube threat “every day” and were discussing adding UGC to Disney+. An ESPN spokesperson declined to comment.
I’m told at least some of the UGC won’t be ready at initial launch and will be geared toward parents – or at least a shared experience between kids and parents. That makes sense. While Gen Alpha has easy access to YouTube because it’s free, it’ll be up to their parents to pay for the ESPN application – $25 or $30 a month, I’m told. Executives are still weighing the right price between those two options.
A price, a launch date, and a name for the service are all coming in the next few months. For the name, some executives have suggested simply calling the service “ESPN” while sunsetting the ESPN+ brand to a cheaper tier of sports content. That may be more of a possibility than a probability, but it’s an idea they’re kicking around.
“The ‘new’ television doesn’t look like the ‘old’ television,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan wrote in his annual letter last week. “It’s interactive and includes things like Shorts (yes, people watch them on TVs), podcasts, and live streams, right alongside the sports, sitcoms and talk shows people already love.”
You’re seeing this reality creep into the NBA’s strategy. The All-Star game was shortened into multiple mini-games, each ending when a team scored 40 points. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recently mused about shortening quarters from 12 minutes to 10 minutes. YouTube’s biggest star, Mr. Beast, joined All-Star weekend live from the Chase Center with one of his $100,000 contests.
The question for the league – and media companies – is if Gen Alpha’s trend away from watching full games is irreversible or simply a product of age. The league has some evidence that gambling (legalized age: 18) increases live viewership. This is one of the reasons Silver has been a consistent advocate for legalized gambling.
That’s why ESPN is also leaning heavily on integrating gambling into its flagship streaming service. In conjunction with ESPN Bet, powered by Penn Entertainment, fans who watch ESPN through the new app will be able to see betting information on the screen along with the live game.
If Mohan is right, and YouTube inalterably changes the definition of TV, it totally upends the business of sports. The cost of live game rights, which just sold for $77 billion over the next 11 years for the NBA, could plummet. Alternatively, the cost of highlight access could soar.
This isn’t likely to happen any time soon. Even the oldest of Gen Alpha turn 15 this year. But it’s clearly on the minds of decision makers – many of whom have kids who aren’t sitting down at the TV to watch live sports.
On the record
With former Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro and journalist Armen Keteyian …
