The NBA remains in media rights purgatory, waiting to see if and how Warner Bros. Discovery will try to use its own rights to retain a piece of the league's new rights package, while ensuring this corporate game of chicken doesn't happen again next time.
The NBA's new media rights deal does not include equal rights to Disney, NBC and Amazon, which have agreed to pay the league about $75 billion over 11 years, according to an industry source briefed on the deal. The new rights agreement goes into effect at the start of the 2025-26 NBA season. It also includes paying the WNBA about $2.2 billion over 11 years for the WNBA's next rights deal.
The NBA declined to comment.
The NBA's Board of Governors voted and approved the future deal, but it has not yet been formally finalized. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has publicly stated that his company has acquired equal rights from its current media rights agreements and could retain one of the packages. The company is believed to be looking at its deal with Amazon, which will pay the NBA an average of $1.8 billion per season for the rights to broadcast the six conference finals, playoffs, the NBA Cup, and Thursday night and weekend regular-season allocations.
Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns TNT Sports, has five days to decide whether to match the deal, with the process starting Wednesday night, according to CNBC.
The NBA is likely to challenge Warner Bros. Discovery's interpretation of back-end rights, which could lead to litigation if no middle ground can be found. Warner Bros. Discovery has until the end of the day on Monday to let the NBA know its intentions.
Mr. Zaslav repeatedly refers to the provisions of the matching rights.
“Under our current contract with the NBA, we have matching rights to match any third-party offer before the NBA enters into a contract with that third party,” he said in May.
The NBA is now entering uncertain territory, with even commissioner Adam Silver unsure of where the league will go from here as it awaits Warner Bros. Discovery's next move, or how difficult the process will be.
“I don't have that feeling,” he said Tuesday. “A lot of it is out of my control. We'll see how it goes.”
If Warner Bros. Discovery can't keep the NBA rights, it would spell the end of a 40-year relationship between the companies. The popular studio show “Inside the NBA,” featuring Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Kenny Smith, will likely be canceled after next season. TNT could try to continue the show without games, especially if it can win highlight programming from the league.
The wait-and-see strategy with Warner Bros. Discovery also adds uncertainty to the future of NBA TV, which the NBA runs in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery for the channel and some of its digital properties, and it's largely unclear what would happen if the two sides fell apart, leaving company employees nervous.
Silver said this week that he's “thought a lot” about what NBA TV would look like in that scenario, but there are too many moving parts to give a definitive answer.
“We don't know yet,” Silver said.
(Photo: Troy Taormina/USA Today)
