📺 Is TNT Officially Back in the NBA Mix?

It’s WBD vs. Amazon! Fight!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have more NBA media rights news!

Did David Zaslav hear the murmurs? The footsteps? Maybe he just heard the shit talking? Whatever it was, it helped him finally realize (after 4+ official months lol) that Warner Bros. Discovery doesn’t want to end its longtime partnership with the NBA without a fight. The parent company of TNT Sports confirmed yesterday that it has made a matching offer for Amazon’s $1.8B per year bid for 11 years of streaming rights. The problem? (and honestly, who knows if Zaslav even knew this at the time) is that even though TNT has the contractual right to match an offer, per their current contract — the ultimate decision maker will be the NBA. Does the NBA decide to drop the media conglomerate and their $19.8B total bid in favor of TNT and the most entertaining pre and postgame show on TV in Inside the NBA? What needs to happen for Zaslav & Co. to get their golden goose back?

Let’s get after it…

How did we get here?

• Nearly 2 weeks ago, the NBA agreed to media rights deals with NBC, Amazon Prime Video, and ABC/ESPN. They will officially go into effect during the 2025-26 season.

• The deal is reportedly worth $76B over the course of 11 years.

  • ESPN will look to pay $2.6B (slightly less than the $2.7B it pays for their NFL rights) to keep the Finals on the network exclusively.

  • NBC is expected to pay $2.5B per season.

  • Amazon is set to pay $1.8B per year.

    • It shouldn’t come as too much of a shock, given the numbers, but this will be considered the NBA’s “C” package (which makes sense that Zaslav would go for the cheaper option)

    • These rights are expected to include a conference final every other season, early-round playoffs (like on NBA TV), weekly regular-season broadcasts, the Emirates NBA Cup (formerly the In-Season Tournament), and WNBA rights.

  • To give you an idea on how crazy purchase prices have increased, in the current agreement, ESPN and TNT pay a combined $2.6B over their 9-year agreement.

• And it’s all set up for greatness…under these new media deals, the regular season would feature national telecasts nearly 7 days/week (currently it’s only 3 games/week) with the proposed national TV schedule looking something like this once NFL games end:

  • Monday: Peacock

  • Tuesday: NBC

  • Wednesday: ESPN

  • Thursday: Amazon

  • Friday: ESPN/Amazon

  • Saturday: ESPN/Amazon

  • Sunday: NBC/ESPN

What can TNT do to recapture the rights?

• It’s not as easy as just crossing out Amazon’s name and writing in “TNT”. Let’s explain…

  • From a monetary (CA$H MONEY) perspective, WBD is said to have matched Amazon, but questions remain about their ability to match the terms and conditions (LEGAL WRITING) of Amazon’s offer.

  • For example, the NBA is expected to push back on WBD’s streaming reach; with an estimated base of around 100M global subscribers, the Max service has less than half the number of paying customers as Amazon Prime.

• We also shouldn’t gloss over the fact that the NBA Board of Governors voted to approve on the $76B package last week in Las Vegas — which, included Disney, Comcast, and Amazon in their vote!

• Oh we’re not done yet…Amazon reportedly slipped in a little poison-pill into their own offer where they agreed to pay several years of their rights fees upfront (~$6B). Which means, WBD would be required to match that upfront cost as well.

• Ultimately, it doesn’t look good for TNT as the NBA is expected to decline the network’s right to take the agreed upon Amazon package.

What could happen moving forward?

• Compromise. Both WBD and the NBA could try to reach an agreement that keeps TNT in the NBA business or gives it some sort of financial settlement to go away.

• Lawsuit. Another option could be that this goes to court with TNT suing to stay in business with the league. This would set up the possibility (though very unlikely) of the courts forcing the NBA to remain with a partner it wants to divorce.

• PR play at work. It’s too bad Zaslav is the butt of all these jokes…but to be honest, he deserves it. WBD could be “matching” this as a strict PR play to get back in the good graces of their viewers and to have a better image. Because let’s be honest, it’s not like WBD is doing well financially. WBD closed out Q1 with ~$43B in gross debt and is in the midst of laying off ~1,000 people — a purge which followed 2,000 other employees getting let go in the past year. Shares of WBD have fallen 65% since the merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia closed in April 2022. All this to say…WBD is not necessarily swimming in cash.

Enjoying this really awesome newsletter? Share with your friends!

Quick Hitters

• ⛹️‍♀️ The WNBA continues to flourish and take advantage of this “sports-lull” during the mid weeks of July. Saturday’s All-Star Game in Phoenix between Team USA and Team WNBA drew a record ~3.4M viewers, more than double the previous mark of ~1.4M, which was set in 2003. The game’s rating is the most-watched WNBA event on any ESPN network and the third-most-watched WNBA game ever, with the top two coming on the league’s debut weekend in 1997, according to Sports Media Watch.

• 🏈 More football! More NFL games! More fantasy football chatter! According to The Washington Post, the NFL and the NFL Players Association have had “high-level discussions” about the idea of adding an additional game to the league’s regular-season calendar. So instead of 17 games, we would now have 18 games! Even though formal negotiations have yet to begin, this would be a massive deal — one that could take effect before the end of the current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire after the 2030 season. Of course decisions need to be made when it comes to health, money, and safety but adding another game to the NFL schedule could lead to the NFL opting out of its $110B media rights deal at the end of the decade and renegotiating for more money. Oh and having the Super Bowl the day before a federal holiday in Presidents’ Day doesn’t sound too bad either 😉.