🤖 The NBA Just Tricked Millions of Fans, and No One Seemed to Notice

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The best part about working in this industry are the moments you remember that sports really aren’t all that complicated.

They’re meant to be competitive and entertaining.

If they aren’t both of those things, then you’re probably doing something wrong (cough, NBA and NFL), but more on that at the end.

In today’s newsletter:

🗞 The Big Story: The Portland Trail Blazers Just Gave up $25M/Year (On Purpose) 

📉 Biggest Loser: The NBA Just Tricked Millions of Fans, and No One Seemed to Notice

🏆 Winner’s Circle: How a WNBA All-Star Made More Money in One Week After Quitting Basketball

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🗞 The Big Story

The Portland Trail Blazers just walked away from $25 million per year, but it could be one of the smartest decisions they’ve ever made.

Viewership Decline: Last year, the Blazers ranked dead last in the NBA in year-over-year viewership, losing 49% of their TV audience compared to the year prior.

This was thanks, in large part, to the fact that their games were only available in 20% of the Portland market, not to mention that the cost to subscribe to these already expensive cable bundles to get access to games on Root Sports Northwest kept rising.

So, before the start of this season, the Blazers cut ties with Root Sports and walked away from a reported $20M to $25M annual rights fee payment and instead opted to give out thousands of antennas to local fans and broadcast their games over the air for free.

New App: At the same time, the team also launched their own direct-to-consumer streaming app, BlazerVision, which costs just $19.99 per month.

As a result of this change, the Blazers went from earning upwards of $25 million per year in local media rights payments to less than $3 million, according to league-wide sources.

But the money isn’t really the point here (at least not right now.)

Instead, the team currently boasts the highest year-over-year average viewership increase in the entire NBA:

1. Portland Trail Blazers: +68%

2. Dallas Mavericks: +58%

3. Cleveland Cavaliers: +57%

4. Oklahoma City Thunder: +55%

5. Houston Rockets: +14%

Not to mention, they’re now able to broadcast their games to every fan in Portland and extend their reach into markets like Seattle and Eugene.

This has already led to an increase in single-game ticket sales, and the team’s president says that they hope that more fans watching their games means more merchandise and ticket sales for years to come.

📉 Biggest Loser

The NBA just (accidentally) tricked millions of fans, and somehow, no one seemed to notice. Let’s find out how.

Annual NBA Tech Summit: Late last week, the NBA hosted its 25th annual Tech Summit, when Commissioner Adam Silver gets on stage in front of the media and venture capitalists to discuss innovations the league is currently working on.

And this year was no different, with Silver showcasing the league’s usage of cutting-edge AI and robot technology to help teams and players.

In fact, after the summit, clips went viral, with accounts from Bleacher Report to Joe Pompliano posting about this “incredible” new technology; there’s just one problem:

None of it is real.

If you watch the full video the NBA put out, it sounds more like a sketch out of The Office than it does a promotion for new technology:

And the more I rewatch these videos, the more obvious it becomes that this was all meant to be a bit of a joke, but the NBA didn’t make that obvious at all.

Fake News: In fact, I couldn’t find a single headline that called out the fact that these robots aren’t actually being used by the Warriors.

Instead, dozens of publications and accounts just regurgitated the assumption that this is all real.

However, at the same time, I doubt that the NBA made these videos intending to trick its own fans, and they did note in their recap that this presentation was meant to provide “a glimpse into the playful yet powerful application of robotics in sports.”

But if this is the level of media literacy the average sports fan has in 2025, I think we might be cooked.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

This WNBA All-Star made more money in one week after leaving basketball than she did during her entire career, and her decision reveals the WNBA’s biggest problem.

Background: Liz Cambage is a 6’9” Australian center who played in the WNBA for six seasons between 2011 and 2022, during four of which she was named an All-Star.

Cambage still holds the league’s single-game scoring record, which she set in 2018 when she scored 53 points for the Dallas Wings.

Now, Cambage has always been in and out of the WNBA, opting multiple times throughout her career to play overseas, where she earned much more money.

In fact, after playing six seasons in America, she only earned $590,000, an average of less than $100,000 per year.

New Side Hustle: So, when she launched an OnlyFans account in 2021 and reportedly made more money in her first week on the platform than she did during her entire WNBA career, she may have had a change of heart.

Cambage has never said this publicly, but it seems likely that after earning a reported $1.5 million during her first year on this new platform, she felt comfortable stepping away from the WNBA in the middle of the 2022 season, even after signing $141,000 deal with the LA Sparks.

But what does this have to do with the rest of the league?

It’s no secret that even the WNBA’s top stars, like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, make a vast majority of their money from off-the-court deals, and even though the WNBA just signed a new 11-year, $2.2 billion broadcast deal, I’m not sure the outcome is going to be what players are hoping for.

Sure, it’s possible that the new minimum salary in the WNBA could be upwards of $200,000, with the leagues’ top-end players finally earning over $1 million per year, but as Kelsey Plum famously described:

“We’re not asking to get paid what the men get paid; we’re asking to get paid the same percentage of the revenue shared.”

Revenue Split Disparity: However, what many people fail to realize is that while athletes in the NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLB all get a 50% split of league revenues, WNBA players only get 10%, with the NBA and other investors getting 60%.

So, it’s possible that Cambage recognized this cap on her earning potential as a WNBA player and decided to focus on making her money elsewhere.

⏱️ In Other News

• Meet the NFL Star Who QUIT in his Prime to Become a Farmer (Jason Brown)

• The Bears Still Suck

• Are the Texans getting a new stadium?

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👋🏻 Happy Friday!

I’m writing this before the USA reasserts its hockey dominance over Canada (I assume).

But regardless of who wins, there should be one major takeaway for every major sports league:

Competition sells.

We saw it with the World Baseball Classic, we’re seeing it now with the 4 Nations Tournament, and there’s no reason we can’t have something across the NBA and the NFL.

Sometimes, this industry isn’t that hard to get right.