Sacramento's TV Deal Indicates Clippers Cannot Expect $125 Million

Are the local television rights for the Los Angeles Clippers worth 250% more than the rights for the Sacramento Kings?

The Kings recently inked a 20-year media rights extension with NBC Sports Group worth an average of $35 million a season, reports SportsBusiness Journal. The new agreement is a three-fold increase over the NBA team's current deal.

Morgan Stanley's bid book for the Los Angeles Clippers, the basketball team that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is going to buy for $2 billion from Shelly Sterling, expects the team's next a rights deal to be worth an average of $125 million a year beginning with the 2016-17 season, a five-fold increase compared with their current agreement. Is $125 million a fair expectation?

This past season, the Kings averaged 26,000 homes per telecast, according to SBJ. The Clippers Clippers averaged 71,000 households per game, reports the L.A. Times. Based on eyeballs, and also keeping in mind that the Kings were terrible and the Clippers a playoff team, the answer would clearly be no.

But $100 million is plausible given the need for Fox Sports, who lost the Lakers to Time Warner Cable, to hold onto the Clippers and the fact that Los Angeles is four times the media market of Sacramento.