With their current contract expiring after the 2024-2025 season, there is a lot of interest in their next rights deal with the National Basketball Association.
According to various reports, ABC/ESPN and Amazon are expected to win the deal, while Turner Sports and NBC Sports are expected to make multi-billion dollar deals to acquire the premium broadcast package.
Nothing has been announced yet, but NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was stopped by TMZ cameras on his way to a White House state dinner in Washington, D.C. on Thursday and asked how media deal negotiations were going.
“Nobody knows,” Silver said. “Everybody's still talking about it. Nobody knows what's going to happen.”
He was also asked about Turner's Emmy Award-winning studio show “Inside the NBA,” which features Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal and Kenny Smith.
Johnson has previously said he would continue his contract with Turner no matter what decision is made, and Barclay has said the department could terminate the contract if it loses the bid.
“We're not going to lose Charles and Kenny,” Silver said. “They're going to always be covering the NBA. … They're going to be the ones that are going to be there.” [on ‘Inside the NBA’] Although they will no longer be performing or announcing together, we all love them.”
PAC News reported that Silver is “upset” with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, and contrary to what Silver told TMZ, the league has already decided on a broadcast partner.
Puck also reports that Disney (ESPN/ABC) will get the top package for $2.8 billion per year, Comcast/NBC will get the “B” package for $2.5 billion, and Amazon Prime Video will get the final share, paying roughly $2 billion per year to broadcast the games.
