Hoops

Why isn't the NBA on Free to air TV?

It does make you wonder though why a couple of small market teams don't come here with a fuckload of merchandise and play a couple of games in Australia...

We would expect Melbourne and/or Sydney but would they take a game to Brisbane (our third biggest city) that's without an NBL team or Perth (with the best stadium) or Adelaide?

It would be great to have all 5!

"Yeah but surely on FTA it would promote the NBA brand in Australia a lot more?

Television is a massive Marketing tool.

A win/win situation for the NBA"

Clearly the NBA's brand in Australia is pretty strong judging by the League Pass figures, but we're a small fish in a big blue ocean. Most of their resources go to the bigger markets: USA, China, India and various regions in Europe.

If the goal were to market the NBA to Australia, then selling the broadcasting rights cheap to a network would only accomplish a reduction in League Pass subscriptions; at the current broadcasting rates the networks aren't interested.

I'll go out on a limb and infer that the networks and the NBA have PROBABLY done a little more research than any of us have...

Anon, you asked why the NBA isn't on FTA: take the answers for what they're worth. Consider buying an NBA League Pass or Foxtel subscription if you're unhappy.

ONEHD had games on Wednesday and Friday mornings, does anyone believe that giving us a weekend game would have changed the outlook on ratings?

I loved ONEHD when it was a 24 hour sports channel and live all across Australia but a change in ownership have a change in philosophy hence why the NBL or other sport (minus swimming) isn't broadcast until after 9:30pm.

It will be interesting to see if Big Bash will destroy NBL coverage or not but only time will tell

They did run Bucks games during prime time when Andrew Bogut played for them. Considering that it didn't last long I'm guessing it didn't rate well enough.

We have a plethora of casual basketball fans in Australia. NBA.com has highlights, ESPN/NBA has "analysis" and NBA league pass allows for fans to watch games whenever it suits them: this is enough for most.

There isn't a whole lot of point for casual fans to watch an entire game on FTA when they've likely already watched the highlights and checked the box scores.

Live NBA games generally run during daytime TV in Australia, and therefore recieve poor ratings.

Furthermore, while the rights to broadcast regular reason games aren't overly expensive it isn't the most cost-effective programming for the networks.

Given the monopoly ONE HD had on the free-to-air market a few years back I believe they could have capitalized on their sporting brand/identity and made it work, but as things currently stand there are better programming options available.