With 13 NBA teams facing key distribution questions this offseason now that Main Street Sports Group is winding down, perhaps they can learn some lessons from their brethren down in New Orleans.
The Pelicans were faced with a similar situation when Main Street first came out of bankruptcy, and they ultimately decided to part ways prior to last season. That led to the creation of Gulf Coast Sports & Entertainment Network (GCSEN), whereby the Pelicans would move away from what was a cable-focused footprint/reach of around 700,000 homes on FanDuel Sports Network New Orleans to a broadcast TV-focused model with a footprint of over 10 million homes across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and parts of Florida. There would also be a DTC product, built by Kiswe, to stream live games inside the Pelicans’ coverage territory.
Are teams hitting up the Pelicans to see what has worked? “Yeah, they are. A few of them are,” said Greg Bensel, SVP/communications, broadcasting, community and government relations for the Pelicans and Saints. And in those conversations, Bensel tells counterparts that getting this sort of media effort off the ground is “hand-to-hand combat” in a local market.
When the Pelicans realized they wouldn’t be going back to Main Street, they looked at a number of possible plans. But it was a desire to make the NBA team more “regional” that ultimately had them strike a three-year deal with Gray Media.
In New Orleans, GCSEN content went to Gray-owned WVUE-TV Fox 8, which the Benson family had owned until 2013. Gray also had a number of affiliates (10+) in local markets like Lafayette (La.), Lake Charles (La.) and Birmingham (Ala.), and that regional spread gives the Pelicans a reach closer to the market size of Chicago, especially when a new DirecTV distribution deal kicked in.
One thing was for sure: The dollars would certainly not be there at the start. Sources told SBJ that the Pelicans were making closer to $25M annually toward the end of their Main Street media deal; now, they’re getting closer to $6M.
What are we going to show?
A key issue for teams going out on their own is how to populate a channel with content, especially during the offseason. “The first six months, eight months maybe for the first year -- we were kind of just maybe a zero rating,” Bensel noted, as Gray filled the hours outside of games, pre- and postgame shows with the likes of auto repair programs to fill time.
But then GCSEN leaned into sports content beyond the NBA team, including video podcasts focused on LSU and the Saints. “We were building programming that was going to start at 8am [CT],” Bensel said. “When you woke up, there was live programming talking about the Pelicans or talking about the Saints or talking about LSU, Tulane football. A talk show about [high school football] and live programming of high school sports would lead into and take you up to a Pelicans pregame.”
Fans responded as well, and those zero ratings have risen. The team noted Nielsen ratings for games are up 100% year-over-year, with strong growth in markets like Baton Rouge, Monroe and Shreveport in Louisiana, as well as in Jackson and Biloxi in Mississippi and Mobile in Alabama. “People are interested, and they’re watching and it’s because it’s accessible, it’s easy. People love live sports programming,” Bensel said.
For a network like Gulf Coast, adding more desirable live game content would be great. Could that eventually be something like an SEC sublicense for LSU, Ole Miss or Mississippi State baseball games from ESPN? Or maybe other Olympic sports? That remains to be seen. “All of that is on the table,” Bensel said.
Can GCSEN exist alongside a national NBA streaming package?
The NBA has made no secret that it plans to launch a national service for local streaming of teams’ games. But the demise of Main Street may have moved up that timeline, as first reported by Puck. Then SBJ last week reported NBA talks have already begun with the likes of Amazon, DAZN, ESPN and YouTube TV on launching such a service.
“At the end of the day, the Gulf Coast Sports & Entertainment Network isn’t going to go anywhere,” Bensel said. “Even if the NBA comes to us in a year and says, ‘Look, we’re taking all 30 teams and this is where you’re going to live, this is your fee, and you’ve got to be exclusive to this,’ I still think we still maintain our Gulf Coast network. It’s great for our brand and brand growth and merchandise and sales and everything else. So, we’re committed to this.”
