A report from the Wall Street Journal says NBC is making an offer around $2.5 billion per year to obtain part of the NBA media rights package. Joel Flint, Amol Sharma and Isabella Simonetti all contributed to the story which says Warner Bros. Discovery is making a “last-ditch effort” for TNT to continue as an NBA partner.
The TNT portion of the current agreement, which expires after next season, is an average of $1.2 billion. ESPN had been paying $1.5 billion and that is expected to increase over $1 billion annually.
Last week, reports surfaced from Puck’s John Ourand that ESPN was nearing completion of their portion of the package and that it would include the NBA Finals staying on ABC. All indications had been there would be more than two partners in the next deal and that it would include a streaming network. Andrew Marchand of The Athletic also reported last week that Amazon Prime Video and the league “have the framework of a deal” and that it would include “significant regular season and postseason games, perhaps even conference finals.”
The WSJ report says NBC’s discussions with the NBA have been about carrying two prime-time games a week. This is important as WBD has matching rights in their current agreement. However, they do not own a broadcast network and therefore could not offer something similar to NBC.
Multiple reports have said any new agreements will be for a period of ten years.
