David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…Okay. They're likely better than a breakeven business on the whole, but call it a breakeven business that effectively revenue-wise looks like a late-stage startup. Yup. Also in 1983, right before Stern took over, they negotiated a new TV deal with ABC that I believe was about $20 million a year in terms of payments for national broadcast rights to the NBA as a whole. Five years later—December 1989—after Stern takes over, he had MJ to market as a pretty good product to market. That deal expires and he and the NBA negotiate two new 4-year TV deals with NBC and with Turner for $875 million. That's over $200 million a year, literally 10X the deal that had been negotiated the year before Stern took over. Not only 10X of the TV deal. If you just take that revenue, ignore all other revenue sources in the NBA—concessions, ticket sales, merchandise sales, everything else, and advertising—just the TV deal alone is 50% more annual revenue than the entire revenue of the league in 1983 when Stern took over. Wow. Do you say $200 million a year in TV revenue?…

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