Jaylen Brown, wearing number 7 of the Boston Celtics, shoots a three-point shot against the Dallas Mavericks during Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals at TD Garden in Boston on June 17, 2024.
Nathaniel S. Butler | National Basketball Association | Getty Images
A TNT spokesman confirmed the documents and that the company is currently reviewing the terms. Warner Bros. Discovery received the framework for the deal on Wednesday night, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the details are private.
Media rights agreements as currently structured include: Disney, Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon The three different game packages have a combined value of $76 billion over 11 years, beginning with the 2025-26 season, with WNBA games included, accounting for $2.2 billion of the total.
Warner Bros. Discovery will offer games to rival the pre-order gaming packages for Amazon, as reported by CNBC. It was first reported in MayPlayoff games and Tournaments during the seasonAmazon has inked a deal with the NBA to pay $1.8 billion a year in packaged fees, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Even if Warner Bros. Discovery formally announces its intention to match, it’s unclear what would happen after that. The NBA may or may not have the right to veto Warner Bros. Discovery’s matching rights. The league has been in talks with lawyers for months about a possible lawsuit, according to people familiar with the matter.
Turner Sports, a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery, has been the NBA’s broadcast partner for nearly 40 years. The company plans to insist that its rights inherited from current media rights deals apply to Amazon’s game package, even though it is planned to be a streaming-only service. Warner Bros. Discovery also owns cable network TNT as well as Max, a competitor to Amazon’s Prime Video.
Still, Max has fewer subscribers than Prime Video, about 100 million, compared with more than 200 million monthly subscribers worldwide. The streaming rights included in Amazon’s package are global in nature, one of the people said.
TNT is also home to the popular NBA studio show “Inside the NBA,” featuring Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal. Already said He plans to retire from the show after next season, regardless of the outcome of a media rights deal.
“We don’t know yet,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. Earlier this week When asked at the press conference what may or may not happen with Warner Bros. Discovery and NBA TV, the NBA’s own network run by TNT Sports, he said, “We’ll see.”
Losing the NBA would be a blow to Warner Bros. Discovery, which could lose about $600 million in advertising revenue and potentially cut commissions from cable affiliates if it loses the NBA, Peter Spino, media and entertainment analyst at Wolfe Research, told MarketWatch. Earlier this week.
Warner Bros. Discovery shares have fallen 23% this year.
“I apologize that this has taken so long because I know they are committed to their jobs,” Silver said. last month “I know people who work in this industry, and it’s a big part of their identity and their families’ identity. Nobody likes this uncertainty. I think it’s up to the league office to wrap up these negotiations and get them concluded as soon as possible,” said an employee at Warner Bros. Discovery, who works on NBA programming.
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
