NBA extending television contracts

The NBA and its television partners couldn’t wait to extend their contracts.

The league renewed its deals with ESPN and TNT even though two seasons remain on the old ones. With potential competition from Fox looming, both networks were willing to pay generously to secure the rights long term.

The NBA’s annual revenue from the agreements will increase from $930 million to more than $2.6 billion, according to a person familiar with the terms. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because the league did not announce financial figures.

“We ultimately made a decision that this was the right time to go,” Commissioner Adam Silver said at a news conference Monday. “These are extraordinarily healthy deals financially.”

The contracts will run an additional nine years through the 2024-25 season. The previous eight-year agreements end after 2015-16.

“We believe at the end of the deal it will feel inexpensive,” ESPN President John Skipper said. “It’s hard to imagine.”

What was painful to imagine for both companies was life without the NBA.

“Each year the playoffs help TNT win nights of television during all-important May sweeps,” said David Levy, president of Turner Broadcasting System.

The basics won’t change: The NBA Finals remain on ABC, ESPN’s broadcast partner. ESPN/ABC and TNT will continue to split the conference finals.

Broadcasting rights fees have been skyrocketing across all sports as live events become increasingly valuable to advertisers. Few viewers will DVR an NBA game, which means they can’t fast-forward through the commercials.

“There’s never been a better time to be an owner of an NBA franchise — or, frankly, any professional sports team,” said Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis, chairman of the league’s media committee.

Players may remember that comment when they negotiate the next collective bargaining agreement with owners, which could happen in 2017.

Owners insisted they needed a new financial structure during the 2011 talks and emerged with a deal that slashed the players’ guarantee of basketball revenues.

“The whole thing that went on with the last negotiation process was the owners were telling us they were losing money. There’s no way they can sit in front of us and tell us that right now,” Cleveland’s LeBron James said. “After we continue to see teams selling for billions of dollars, being purchased for $200 million, signing for $550, $750 and $2 billion and now (Mikhail) Prokhorov is possibly selling his majority stake in the Nets for over $1 billion. That will not fly with us this time.”

The league has relationships with both Fox and Comcast, NBC’s parent company, which locally televise teams’ games on their regional sports networks. If the national contract had gone to the open market, NBC also could have pursued a return to NBA coverage to boost its 24-hour sports cable channel, NBCSN.

Silver said the league took into consideration the potential interest of tech companies such as Google and Apple that could eventually bid on sports rights and change the model for how fans watch games.

But for the next decade and beyond, the NBA is sticking with what works.

“I don’t think we left any money on the table,” Silver said. “We’re confident that we maximized what our opportunity was in the marketplace.”

For ESPN, the value of the deal goes beyond games, though there are more of those, too: ESPN and ABC are adding 10 regular-season matchups, bringing their total to 100.

The network also gets expanded rights to air highlights and will significantly expand its NBA studio shows. The goal is to make basketball a year-round topic of conversation as the NFL has become on ESPN.

To that end, the agreement adds the NBA’s Summer League and its developmental league. The network also extends its WNBA contract through 2025 and increases its offerings for ESPN International.

And then there are the plans for a new service for mobile devices that ESPN will run, with the NBA receiving equity interest. Details on that have yet to be determined.

ESPN now owns rights to the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, college football playoffs and four of the five power conferences through at least 2021. Only the Big Ten contract ends soon among the network’s biggest sports properties.

It will be at least another decade before Fox can try to put a substantial dent in ESPN’s head start.

TNT, meanwhile, can’t offer its own 24-hour sports channel to the NBA. But it has deep business ties to the league through managing its digital properties, which includes NBA TV and NBA.com.

Lakers’ Young out for eight weeks

Los Angeles Lakers guard Nick Young will be out for about eight weeks after surgery on his torn thumb ligament.

The Lakers say Young had successful surgery Monday.

He tore the radial collateral ligament in his right thumb last week in training camp while guarding Kobe Bryant during a drill.

Young was the Lakers’ leading scorer last season, his first with his hometown team. He scored 17.9 points per game while mostly coming off the bench, entertaining Lakers fans with his freewheeling style during the club’s worst season in a half-century.

Young re-signed with the Lakers in July, agreeing to a four-year, $21.5 million deal.

MLB Bail revoked over MLB scandal figure

The former owner of the clinic at the center of Major League Baseball’s recent performance-enhancing drug scandal had his bail revoked Monday because of recent positive tests for cocaine use.

U.S. District Judge Darrin P. Gayles ordered Anthony Bosch jailed immediately. Bosch tested positive twice in August for cocaine use, after he was released on $100,000 bail under conditions including no use of illegal drugs and random urine testing. Gayles also found Bosch wasn’t regularly attending voluntary drug treatment.

“I simply have no confidence in his ability to appear as required,” Gayles said at a hearing.

Prosecutors say Bosch’s Coral Gables clinic, Biogenesis of America, was involved in a conspiracy to provide performance-enhancing drugs to MLB players and even high school athletes.

Fourteen MLB players were suspended following the probe, including a season-long suspension this year for New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.

Bosch, 51, is scheduled to plead guilty next week and has been cooperating in the investi- gation against others who were charged, including possibly testifying in those cases. Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael “Pat” Sullivan, however, said authorities were well aware of Bosch’s chronic drug problem and fondness for South Beach nightclubs.

“We knew from our investigation that Mr. Bosch was one who liked to party,” Sullivan said.

Bosch attorney Guy Lewis, himself a former Miami U.S. attorney, pointed out that Bosch had not tested positive for cocaine since Aug. 18 and was doing his best to attend a drug treatment program.

Lewis denied that Bosch has been frequenting nightclubs and said that he is living up to his cooperation agreement with prosecutors.

“I can tell you he’s not out on South Beach,” Lewis said. “The last thing he’s doing is out being notorious in South Florida. He has a drug problem, though. He is addressing it.”

Kershaw to pitch on short rest

Don Mattingly decided not to postpone the intrigue over Clayton Kershaw.

The Los Angeles Dodgers manager said Monday he’ll go with Kershaw on three days’ rest in Game 4 of their NL Division Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Mattingly made the announcement before Game 3 in a bestof-five series tied at a game apiece. He added he “pretty much knew” he’d go that way with his ace before the series started.

Kershaw is set to pitch Tuesday night. Mattingly said Zack Greinke would start a potential Game 5 on regular rest Thursday in Los Angeles.

Kershaw is the heavy favorite to win a third NL Cy Young and won on short rest in the NL Division Series last year, beating the Braves in the series clincher. That’s the only time he’s pitched on three days’ rest in his career.

But he’s been pummeled his last two times in the postseason by the Cardinals, and surrendered eight runs in 6 2-3 innings while blowing a five-run lead in Game 1.

Mattingly said Kershaw had bounced back mentally as well as physically, and noted the lefty came back strong last fall the start after he pitched on three days’ rest, a 1-0 loss to St. Louis in the NL Championship Series.

“It’s Clayton Kershaw. I hate to say it like that,” Mattingly said.