Comcast (CMCSA) said Tuesday it is confident it can close an 11-year NBA media rights deal, despite Warner Bros. Discovery's (WBD) TNT network exercising those rights the day before.
Warner Bros. has aired select games through its TNT network since 1989. The company reportedly pays $1.2 billion a year for the rights, which expire at the end of next season. The company said Monday that it paid the same amount in a media bid to continue broadcasting the rights to NBA games, but it is unclear whether the league will continue the partnership.
“We expect an 11-year rights agreement between us and the NBA will be announced shortly,” Comcast President Michael Cavanagh said on the company's second-quarter earnings call. “We do not expect a decision regarding the rights match to have an impact on the package we expect to receive.”
Kavanagh said the package includes 100 regular season games to air on NBC and Peacock — “more than any other media partner and more than the number of regular season games each of our existing partners has under their current rights agreements,” the executive said.
During the playoffs, NBC will have exclusive rights to broadcast first- and second-round games on its national platforms each year. It will also host six NBA Conference Finals series over the life of the deal, “which averages more playoff games each year than any other media partner.”
Meanwhile, Peacock will exclusively stream around 50 regular season and postseason games nationwide.
He added that the NBA deal is one of the reasons Comcast has avoided acquisitions: “Instead of engaging in the process of acquiring content companies, we have primarily focused on organic opportunities, such as the NBA, one of the most coveted sports franchises in the world, which will help drive our growth for the future.”
In total, the NBA has reportedly secured a media rights package worth roughly $76 billion over 11 years, a bullish sign in terms of the importance of the sport to both streamers and traditional broadcasters and cable providers.
“With its sports base, Peacock will likely remain relevant,” MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote following the earnings call. “It gives them a seat at the table for any future consolidation. Peacock benefits from Comcast's strong balance sheet, we observed last quarter.”
Peacock's losses narrowed to $348 million in the first quarter, from $651 million in the same period last year and $639 million in the first quarter of 2024. The streamer also grew its subscriber base by 38% year-over-year to 33 million, but its recent price hikes resulted in a decline of about 500,000 subscribers quarter-over-quarter.
“Adding the NBA to the mix would make the road to profitability even longer,” Moffett said, “but for now, Peacock's losses have thankfully been slimmed down.”
Alexandra Canal She is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X translator, LinkedIn, Please email me at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
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