After more than two years of singularly pushing to build a downtown Philadelphia arena, the 76ers are at least entertaining the notion of building a facility in Camden, N.J.

Marking a significant turn in a long-simmering venue issue in the City of Brotherly Love, the state of New Jersey has directly pitched the 76ers to abandon their plans to construct an arena in Philadelphia’s Center City, and instead locate the project in Camden, just across the Delaware River. The Garden State’s pitch comes with an offer of up to $400 million in tax credits toward an arena and mixed-use development. The 76ers’ downtown plan involves entirely private financing. 

“I am confident that as you identify potential locations for the new home of the 76ers, you will find no better partner than the state of New Jersey and the city of Camden,” wrote Tim Sullivan, New Jersey Economic Development Authority CEO, in a letter to Tad Brown, CEO of 76ers parent company Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment. “Choosing Camden as the 76ers’ new home will be the best decision you will ever make.”

Surprisingly, the 76ers have shown at least an openness to the idea, which would expand on the team’s existing, eight-year-old headquarters and training facility located in Camden. They are taking the proposal seriously. Until now, the 76ers have shown an unyielding focus on the downtown concept. But continued resistance from various community groups to that proposal has now shown some strain on the team. 

Further adding to the team’s frustration is that the current struggle with the downtown arena effort follows a prior, failed push to build at the city’s Penn’s Landing neighborhood. Those roadblocks notably contrast against some recent sports-related successes in New Jersey, including a winning bid led in part by Gov. Phil Murphy to have the title game of the 2026 FIFA World Cup played at MetLife Stadium. 

“We have worked tirelessly for the past five years to build an arena in Philadelphia and negotiations remain ongoing with city leadership regarding our proposal at Market East,” said the 76ers in a statement provided to Front Office Sports. “The reality is we are running out of time to reach an agreement that would allow the 76ers to open our new home in time for the 2031–32 NBA season. As a result, we must take all potential options seriously, including this one.”

Back in South Philly

While the 76ers expand their consideration of a location for a new arena, an offer stands to stay at the Comcast Spectacor-controlled Wells Fargo Center in the existing south Philadelphia sports complex after the current lease expires in 2031. Executives for Comcast Spectacor, which also controls the NHL’s Flyers, have proposed an equal partnership with the 76ers on a new arena in the existing sports complex that would house both the basketball and hockey teams.

As that offer has remained, both Comcast Spectacor and HBSE have also sought to fortify their respective arena development efforts in recent months. HBSE has shown no interest in staying at Wells Fargo Center, but Comcast Spectator is still making overtures.

“As we have said from the beginning, our hope is that the 76ers will remain in south Philadelphia as a partner in the Wells Fargo Center,” said Dan Hilferty, Comcast Spectacor chair and CEO, in a statement to FOS. “We firmly believe if the 76ers and Comcast Spectacor partner together, we can make great things happen together for the city and region.”

The Caitlin Clark show is officially headed to the WNBA postseason. The Indiana Fever clinched their spot in the playoffs late Tuesday night after losses by the Chicago Sky and Phoenix Mercury.

While Clark continues to set viewership and attendance records throughout the regular season, the WNBA is now guaranteed at least two postseason games featuring the rookie superstar. The Fever would currently be the sixth seed if the season ended today, and would face the Minnesota Lynx in a three-game series. But with seven games remaining, six of which are at home, Indiana could conceivably catch the Seattle Storm or Las Vegas Aces, who are three and four games ahead in the standings, respectively.

Must-See TV

Disney will be one of the biggest beneficieries of the Fever making the playoffs, which will be broadcast exclusively on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. This season, Clark has played in games that have resulted in all three of those channels’ most-watched WNBA broadcasts ever, each drawing more than 2 million viewers for different Fever games.

For the remainder of the regular season, Ion and NBA TV each get two more Indiana broadcasts. Ion’s five most-watched WNBA games have involved the Fever, ranging between 1 million and 1.6 million viewers. Indiana’s 104-68 loss to the New York Liberty on June 2 is NBA TV’s largest WNBA audience in history at 430,000 viewers.

When the WNBA’s new $2.2 billion media rights deals begin in 2026, Disney platforms will share the playoffs with NBC Sports and Amazon Prime Video.

Best Show in Town

The Fever lead the WNBA in home attendance, with an average of nearly 17,000 fans per game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The Liberty are second with roughly 12,500 spectators each matchup.

But sustained interest in Clark on the road has led to many opponents moving their home games against Indiana to larger arenas, and setting their home attendance records in the process. Most recently, the Atlanta Dream welcomed a franchise-record 17,608 fans to State Farm Arena for last week’s 83-80 loss to the Fever.

Unless Indiana is able to capture the fourth seed in the playoffs, their opponent will get to sell tickets for two consecutive home games against the Fever, with Clark and Co. only getting a home game if they force a winner-take-all Game 3.

Other Side of the Coin?

Despite the momentum around Clark, her debut WNBA season has also come with controversy. Clark has taken many hard fouls from opposing defenders, and has even been on the receiving end of several technicals.

“They cannot have f***ed this Caitlin Clark thing up any worse if they tried,” Charles Barkley said Wednesday on The Bill Simmons Podcast when discussing some of the media attention surrounding Clark. “Just because people don’t like you or your personality, they can’t get on TV and slander you.”

DirecTV is offering $20 rebates to subscribers, one of the latest moves in a quickly escalating battle between the satellite carrier and ESPN parent company Walt Disney Co. 

As Disney channels, including ESPN, are now dark on the No. 3 U.S. pay-TV distributor, DirecTV is now offering a small rebate to its subscriber base, estimated at more than 11 million. If every subscriber took advantage of the offer, that would represent a return of more than $220 million to consumers. The rebates will be in the form of a bill credit.

Disney, meanwhile, issued another statement bashing DirecTV on Wednesday, in part a response to the carrier’s lengthy presentation to analysts the previous day. 

“DirecTV continues to misrepresent the facts around our ongoing negotiations,” Disney said in a statement attributed to ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro and Disney Entertainment co-chairs Dana Walden and Alan Bergman. “Our priority is to reach a marketplace deal that serves the needs of DirecTV and their customers while also recognizing the value of our top-quality content.”