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Steve Ballmer reportedly wants to air Clippers games on a new streaming service instead of TV

Steve Ballmer
Steve Ballmer

(Mark J. Terrill/AP)

Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer turned down an offer for local broadcast rights totaling $60 million a year from Fox because he wanted to air the team's games on a new standalone streaming service, Claire Atkinson of the New York Post reports.

The Clippers' existing deal with Fox Sports Prime Ticket for local TV rights, which expires after this season, pays them $25 million a year. According to Atkinson, Fox proposed a 140% increase in rights fees, but Ballmer turned it down.

"He's looking at a [digital] subscription channel," a source told the paper.

If we assume for a second that this isn't a negotiating ploy (a big assumption), it looks as if Ballmer's move is more about breaking new ground than it is about a simple revenue calculation.

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A deal of $60 million a year would be the second-biggest local-TV deal in the NBA. While much of the TV industry is in decline, you're still doing pretty well if you're in a position to sell live-sports rights. The NBA's new national TV deal with ESPN and TNT nearly tripled the annual value of the old deal. The latest rights deals for the NFL, the EPL, and college football saw similar jumps.

A source told the Post that it would be tough to surpass $60 million with a subscription model:

"Ballmer is going to want to explore his option on the tech side, but the cable model is still a pretty reliable source of revenue. If they go OTT [over-the-top], they're taking an enormous risk, and they're not the most prominent team in LA — they are second-best."

Every NBA team has a local-TV broadcast deal, though the league will introduce a paid service for individual out-of-market games next season.

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