Darius Garland
The Clippers formalized their local direct-to-distributor and DTC broadcast plans for the season on Wednesday, with an NBA-led reprisal of ClipperVision and layered availability across Spectrum cable, DirecTV satellite and the streaming platform Fubo. Getty Images
The Clippers formalized their local direct-to-distributor and DTC broadcast plans for the season on Wednesday, with an NBA-led reprisal of ClipperVision and layered availability across Spectrum cable, DirecTV satellite and the streaming platform Fubo.
As the last of the 13 ex-Main Street Sports Group teams to announce a blueprint, the Clippers had the benefit of observing what the other dozen teams had executed. Their model most mirrors the Thunder, who similarly created a DTD template that included cable, satellite and streaming. At one point, sources said the Clippers contemplated copying the Bucks, Pistons, Magic, Hornets and Hawks by telecasting games over-the-air, but decided to limit their free broadcasts to just 10 games on Nexstar’s KTLA-5.
Similar to the other former Main Street teams, it is all just a one-year deal arrangement -- with the Clippers expecting to join the league’s centralized hub for the 2027-28 season. Financial terms of this year’s deal were undisclosed, but sources expect the franchise to accure roughly $8M to $10M in rights fees, with the hope its partnership with Playfly Sports -- which will sell both local and national ad inventory for the team’s broadcasts -- will pad that figure.
The upside of the broadcast model is its reach. Spectrum is the dominant cable company in the region, and -- by including DirecTV, DirecTV Stream and Fubo in the DTD plan -- there is accessibility to a myriad of customers. ClipperVision, meanwhile, had gone dark last season and folded into FanDuel Sports Network, but now it’s back in conjunction with the NBA Next Gen platform. Fans can access it on a subscription basis through the LA Clippers + Intuit Dome App, NBA.com, the NBA App and all platforms where the NBA App is available, including connected devices and gaming consoles.
The NBA’s new in-house production arm will produce the Clippers broadcasts for an undisclosed fee -- though, generally it costs roughly $50,000-plus for a single game production. Other teams also believed to be leaning on the league production group -- headed by Matt Volk -- are the Hornets, Mavericks, Pacers, Bucks, Thunder, Grizzlies, T-Wolves, Spurs, Magic and presumably others. The league purportedly will rely on Mobile TV Group for production trucks, but will handle graphics, commercial graphics, trafficking and more in-house as it preps for the centralized hub in a year.