Hair-trigger reaction?
After the NFL has been slapped with a lawsuit over its Sunday Ticket subscription package, the NBA has quickly announced that its League Pass is now offering a la carte game purchases as well as team package subscriptions.
Not that the NBA's move is a reaction to the NFL being hit with a class-action lawsuit—claiming violation of antitrust laws, monopolizing the television market and strangling local channels—but the timing is interesting.
The good part of the NBA offering a la carte purchases of its games is let's face it...not everyone wants to plop down $200 for a bundle of 1,000 games, knowing many of them just won't be that good. Why not cherry pick the first time MVP Stephen Curry and the champion Golden State Warriors face LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in a rematch of the NBA Finals? Anybody up for Chris Paul and the Los Angeles Clippers going head-to-head with Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs after their thrilling first-round, seven-game playoff series? These are the games we want to see and this individual-game purchasing makes it a reality. The team-follow subscription plan should be a hit too, considering all the transplants who grew up being a fan of one team, only to currently reside in a market of another.
Although fans may like the news, cable operators such as Time Warner, which paid the NBA $3.6 billion for cable rights, may not enjoy it as much.
The news comes after the NFL and DirecTV are battling their Sunday Ticket lawsuit. The suit alleges, "a Cleveland Browns fan living in California cannot watch the Browns play, except occasional games on network television, unless he purchases the entire package of League games from NFL Sunday Ticket."
It will be interesting to see how this lawsuit goes and whether the NBA's individual-game purchasing pans out to be a big hit.
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