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. Tomorrow, CNBC will release its NBA team valuations, leading into the league's All-Star weekend. You'll be able to find them at cnbc.com/sport . NBA franchises typically take in somewhere between $300 million and $800 million in revenue each year, based on CNBC's calculations. For a typical NBA team, about $30 million to $40 million million of that comes from regional sports networks, according to people familiar with the matter. The Los Angeles Lakers bring in far more than anyone else, taking in an average of about $150 million per season purely in rights fees after signing a 20-year, $3 billion deal with Time Warner Cable in 2011 . That deal is still an outlier 14 years later. The bulk of the RSN revenue stems from the fees TV operators pay to carry the networks. Most of the rest comes from ad sales, which some teams control and others share with their regional sports network. Some teams also pay for the production of games, which can cost about $5 million to $10 million per season. We've talked about the slow dissolution of the RSN model before in this newsletter – highlighted by the decision of some teams, including the Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz, to abandon their cable RSNs for a combination of streaming and broadcast TV. Phoenix inked a deal with Gray Television in 2023 to broadcast games over the air. Utah did the same with Sinclair Broadcast Group that year. Both the Suns and the Jazz also offer subscription streaming products for regional fans. Both teams took a revenue hit shifting from their old RSN deals to their new streaming-broadcast combos, according to people familiar with the matter. All in, Phoenix took about a 25% revenue haircut, said the people. The Jazz's annual loss was closer to 50% – a number Jazz owner Ryan Smith said was "directionally accurate" when I spoke to him this week. So, does Smith have any regrets about the decision? "You couldn't pay me enough money to go back to the old model," Smith said. Smith told me that in the old model, Jazz games reached about 760,000 individuals when they aired on the AT & T-owned Root Sports Utah. In the new world, Jazz games now reach about 6.3 million people on a number of different broadcast affiliates depending on the state, plus the Jazz's paid streaming service. "You have to zoom out a little bit beyond just the RSN revenue stream," Smith told me. "Our team has about seven different revenue streams, and the other six are enhanced by broader distribution of our games. The more people watch, the more people come to games, the more we sell in concessions, the more money we bring in with sponsorships." The Jazz have also sold about 31,000 Jazz+ streaming subscriptions this season for either daily, monthly or annual plans, according to a Jazz spokesperson. The Jazz are the only team in the league to offer single-game viewing, because the team produces its own games and controls its own bespoke streaming service. A single-game streaming pass is $5. "We weren't providing the best experience," Smith said. "There were carriage blackouts. You have to start with experience first, and with the streaming product, now we're reaching younger audiences." The other buffer Smith (and every other NBA owner) has as a safety net is the $77 billion national TV rights deal that begins next season, nearly tripling the league's previous annual fee. The NBA has a revenue sharing system that redistributes money from the highest-grossing teams to lowest. This helps offset the loss in RSN money for teams like the Jazz and the Suns. Major League Baseball is a different story. MLB is far more exposed to the potential crumbling of RSNs in two ways. First, it doesn't have the same enormous national media rights deal that the NBA and NFL can brag about. Second, RSNs bring in a lot more revenue for MLB than the NBA or NHL. That's because there are many more MLB games in a season – 162 versus 82 for both the NBA and NHL. In most regional markets, MLB teams have guaranteed RSN rights fees that are twice that of NBA teams due to the fact there are twice as many games in the packages, according to WME Sports co-head and Endeavor Executive Vice President Karen Brodkin . If that revenue figure falls dramatically, MLB teams may feel a real squeeze – one that could easily affect the roster construction of teams down the road. This is part of the reason why more and more owners and executives are starting to chirp about an MLB salary cap when the league's collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026. "If the cliff you're falling off of is $30 million per year, that's one thing," Brodkin said. "If you're looking at a falloff of $100 million or more for baseball, that's a much more dramatic issue." On the record With ESPN host Stephen A. Smith ... For those who have never been to Radio Row (where I was last week), let me briefly set the scene for you – it's about 150 media organizations, all broadcasting at the same time, with a lot of famous people milling about. The most famous – Joe Montana , Emmitt Smith , Drew Brees – have small entourages around them. On Wednesday afternoon last week, someone walked briskly into the main hall with about 30 people in tow – many snapping photos on their phones. There was a clear rise in noise in the room as people murmured about the person who had just entered. I didn't see anything like it at any other point all week. At first, I figured maybe it was Patrick Mahomes . Or could it be a former U.S. president? It appeared as though the person may have been flanked by multiple members of security. It turns out, the answer wasn't a former president – but it could be a future president. It was Stephen A. Smith , who has spent the past couple of weeks wondering out loud if he could win the Democratic nomination for president in 2028. A poll already has him at 2% – just one percentage point below Pennsylvania Senator Josh Shapiro and Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz . "I have no interest in being a politician. I have no interest in running for office. But if people came to me and my money was right, and I didn't have anything to worry about, and they said, 'Stephen A., we just want you to be in the White House' – because that's the only office I would be interested in," Smith said. "I wouldn't be interested in being one of 100 senators, and I wouldn't be – I damn sure wouldn't be interested in being one of 435 congressional figures. But if you told me that I could be the President of the United States of America, I'm not gonna sit up there and tell you that I would not strongly entertain that. Yes, I would." We also discussed how ESPN has changed over the decades and why Smith is particularly thankful for the arrival of Pat McAfee to his network. McAfee has drawn ire both in and out of ESPN for providing a platform for soon-to-be ex -New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers to mock vaccines and Dr. Anthony Fauci , former chief medical advisor to the president. Smith credits McAfee for allowing him to speak about politics. Smith said at his prior jobs, he's been told to stick to sports – including previously at ESPN (which Smith still calls the "Worldwide Leader in Sports," much to Chairman Jimmy Pitaro 's chagrin ). McAfee's presence has changed the paradigm. "I'm incredibly appreciative for Pat McAfee's presence, and I don't think Pat McAfee realizes how appreciative I am of what he's brought to the table," Smith told me. "He's opened the floodgates to a potential level of freedom we never knew existed at the 'Worldwide Leader' until he arrived." Smith also spoke about what his role will be – or won't be – on "Inside the NBA" when TNT Sports licenses the show to ESPN next year. "I doubt I have any role with it," Smith said. "I don't believe you mess with perfection. And they are perfection." Smith went on to say he'd be open to contributing to the show, which will replace ESPN's "NBA Countdown" as the network's studio show for marquee NBA games beginning next season, but he doesn't expect anything specific. "If those guys on 'Inside the NBA' want me in any capacity, I'm happy to join them. But if it's five times, 10 times, 20 times, or zero, I'm going to root for them," he said. And one more note for you, loyal reader: You can now listen to our weekly "On the Record" interview as a podcast in addition to watching it as a videocast. 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: Last week, I asked NFL Chief Media and Business Officer Brian Rolapp if the Super Bowl would be the most-watched game ever. He told me it likely would as long as the game was close. Well, it wasn't close – and it still became the most-watched game ever. CNBC's Lillian Rizzo has the details . Now that the Super Bowl is over, go back and watch the best commercials. CNBC's Sarah Whitten and Sara Salinas made a tidy compilation for you here . ScorePlay, an artificial intelligence service for sports clips, has raised $13 million in series A funding from a collection of media and sports figures, including NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo , former Formula 1 driver Nico Rosberg , former captain of the U.S. women's national soccer team Alex Morgan , and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian 's Seven Seven Six VC firm. CNBC's Jess Golden has more details. Tom Brady continues to expand his post-football business aspirations. He's acquired a 50% stake in CardVault, a sports card and memorabilia retailer. The big number: 12,000 The Big Number this week is actually quite a small number. About 12,000 viewers watched LIV Golf live on Fox Sports 2 last Thursday, the opening round of the rogue golf league's 2025 season. The final round wasn't much better. Fox averaged just over 40,000 viewers, split between FS1 and FS2. For comparison, TGL, the Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy -backed simulated golf league, drew an average of 919,000 viewers on its opening night on ESPN. Quote of the week "It's our turn, and it's on us." — Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott said this week his team was "very close" to competing with the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles. The Cowboys missed the playoffs this season, finishing 7-10, and haven't made an NFC Championship game since 1996. Purely to add context, and not at all related to my San Francisco 49ers fandom, the 49ers and Eagles have both made eight NFC Championship games since 1996. (Now we just need to actually win a Super Bowl! Next year's game is in San Francisco, too!) Around the league This just in: The Super Bowl is lucrative! Fox said it made more than $800 million in Super Bowl advertising revenue. I'm sure the NFL is taking note for 2029-30, when it can opt out of its most recent media rights deal. Former CEO of Walmart's U.S. ecommerce division Marc Lore and former MLB star Alex Rodriguez have vowed to become the owners of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA's Minnesota Lynx for years, and now they're one step closer . In a split decision this week, a three-person arbitration panel sided with Lore and Rodriguez in their dispute with current Wolves owner Glen Taylor. The panel decided Taylor didn't have the right last year to cancel a pending sale of 40% of his ownership stake to Lore and Rodriguez. The NBA Board of Governors still must approve a sale to Lore and Rodriguez for the two men to take control of the franchises. Sportico is out with its list of the world's highest paid athletes. Clocking in at No. 1? Soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo , who made a cool $260 million last year. His annual salary to play for Al Nassr , the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia soccer club, is more than $200 million. That's almost as much as CNBC pays me to write this newsletter!
