Andrew Marchand, Sports Media Senior Writer for The Athletic, was a guest of The Dan Patrick Show to talk about the NBA media rights and what could happen between Warner Bros. Discovery and the league. Yesterday, the company said it matched one of the offers made to the NBA and then released a statement.
“We have reviewed the offers and matched one of them,” TNT Sports said in the statement. “This will allow fans to keep enjoying our unparalleled coverage, including the best live game productions in the industry and our iconic studio shows and talent, while building on our proven 40-year commitment for many more years. Our matching paperwork was submitted to the league today. We look forward to the NBA executing our new contract.”
Marchand gave his overview, saying, “TNT is matching Amazon Prime Video’s completed contract with the NBA. They feel like, this is TNT, they have the right to match based off of their contract right now, which gives them back-end rights, which means they can match another deal. The NBA’s contention, I believe, they haven’t said this publicly yet, is going to be, ‘no, you can’t, we want to go with Amazon Prime Video.’ It’s a streaming deal, that was a linear cable TV contract, and so this could be headed towards litigation.”
Marchand is of the belief this is more about WBD getting something in return for giving up those matching rights. He mentioned money and programming opportunities as examples of things that might keep this battle out of the courtroom.
“Could they get something out of this? Yeah, I think that’s possible,” Marchand told Patrick. “What’s happened is, those deals were made a decade ago, streaming wasn’t what it is now, so there’s an argument to be made that these contracts are completely different. And so, the NBA wants to move on…Clearly, they want Amazon’s market cap. They want streaming because that’s where the future is.”
Marchand said if it was decided the league had to let WBD match one of the media rights packages, it would be “like you telling your wife you want a divorce, but she’s like, ‘no, no, we have an agreement, we’re going to stay together for another 11 years.”
Marchand would later add, “Now, can they get something out of this? This is why they’re playing this card.”
Patrick also asked Marchand about Charles Barkley and the kind of leverage he might have once everything is worked out. “He has all the leverage in the world,” Marchand said “…He’s down in Atlanta, and he loves the people there, so they have a lot of things that he could still do for them.
“But Barkley, if he wants to work, he’s going to get paid a lot of money, think Romo money, if he wants to keep going. Or he can continue to work at TNT where he has a long-term contract.”
Marchand also said he did not think Inside the NBA was a major part of the discussions the league had with the media outlets. “These are 11-year contracts,” he said. “How much longer is inside the NBA, as it’s currently composed, going to go on for? Maybe three, four more years, five at most probably. It’s not really in the equation.”
