Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) stock is on the rise as Comcast Inc.'s NBCUniversal (CMCSA) is working on a bid for an NBA rights deal that could potentially move the league away from Warner Bros., the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. It closed more than 9% lower on Tuesday after reporting late. ■ TNT network.
Tuesday's decline pushed the company's stock to its lowest closing price since February 24, 2009.
According to the Wall Street Journal, NBC is close to a deal to pay $2.5 billion a year to air NBA game packages, compared to the $1.2 billion a year Warner Bros. Discovery currently pays. That's more than double the dollar amount.
The package will reportedly include playoff and regular season games broadcast on the NBC network, as well as the company's flagship streaming service, Peacock.
Warner Bros. Discovery was reportedly unable to reach a new deal with the league before the exclusive negotiation period ended last week. The NBA's current rights agreement expires at the end of next season.
The NBA's other major broadcast partner, Disney (DIS), reportedly agreed to increase its annual payment of $1.5 billion to $2.6 billion to renew the contract, the newspaper reported.
Amazon (AMZN) is also negotiating a streaming rights package through its Prime Video service.
Interest in sports rights has increased in recent years, with major technology companies such as Amazon, Apple (AAPL) and YouTube (GOOG, GOOGL) becoming more aggressive with streaming deals in recent years.
Amazon, which debuted the first Black Friday NFL game in November, agreed to spend $1 billion a year on an 11-year NFL Thursday Night Football deal, while Google-owned YouTube won the sought-after NFL Sunday Ticket deal. He reportedly spent $2.5 billion to acquire the rights to the movie. .
Meanwhile, Apple announced that it will sign a 10-year, $2.5 billion contract with Major League Soccer at the end of 2022.
These deals, funded by Big Tech's deep pockets, are a major blow to sports across the board as traditional media giants struggle to sustain themselves amid deep streaming losses and steep declines in linear ad revenue. Inflating costs.
Warner Bros. Discovery recently announced an upcoming “joint venture” (JV) sports streaming partnership with ESPN and Fox. Currently, Disney, WBD, and Fox collectively control approximately 55% of the total U.S. sports rights.
alexandra canal I'm a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, Email alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
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