The NBA Board of Governors is reportedly set to vote on the new media rights deal the league has agreed on with ESPN, NBC and Amazon’s Prime Video worth a collective $76 billion over 11 years. Warner Bros. Discovery, which has owned properties that have broadcast games for the league since 1984, is reportedly expected to use its matching rights provision in its existing deal, according to a new report from Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal. The company would likely try to match the Amazon bid, but the league is expected to argue that Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT, a linear sports cable network, is not the same as what Prime Video offers.
Bill Koenig, who is the president of global content and media distribution for the NBA, has been reported as being the point person within these negotiations. A source close to Warner Bros. Discovery told Sports Business Journal that a lawsuit is a possible scenario, but it is not something that can be deemed as a certainty because of its contingency on preceding factors. If the deal is approved by the NBA, the league would await a response from Warner Bros. Discovery. Friend cites sources in his report that claim NBA Commissioner Adam Silver “100% expects to be sued,” and therefore will have Koenig, who first introduced the matching rights provision 22 years ago, standing by if it happens.
Sources within the report indicated that an outcome Warner Bros. Discovery could offer is that it would stream the package agreed on with Amazon through its Max streaming service. The package reportedly consists of Thursday night games, Friday or Saturday night games, the Emirates NBA Cup, early round playoff games and six conference finals, along with international rights and broadcast rights to WNBA games. Amazon is slated to pay $1.8 billion a year for the new package, according to multiple reports, and would add it within a portfolio that consists of Thursday Night Football, Overtime Elite and various docuseries. Silver had previously expressed the importance of streaming services in the media landscape.
While there are various arguments presented in the story, including that Warner Bros. Discovery could simulcast all Max games on TNT to account for Amazon’s ad-supported distribution of 200 million consumers, the league is said to have “definitely moved on from Turner.” David Zaslav, chief executive officer of Warner Bros. Discovery, publicly stated last year that the entity did not need the NBA, and he recently averred that the company’s sports oeuvre is “very robust.”
Charles Barkley, analyst on the award-winning studio program Inside the NBA, has been candid about the media rights negotiations and divulged that he would be retiring after next season no matter what happens. Silver apologized for the duration of media rights negotiations during a press conference at the NBA Finals last month.
