If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve seen this coming from miles away. The NBA media rights conversation for after next season was always going to end with lawyers. Dang lawyers always win in the end. I assume they will be big winners here.
I thought Richard Deitsch said it best when he posted a reply to a statement TNT made on X that said simply, “There will be lawyers and billable hours.” So. Many. Billable. Hours.
If you need to get caught up, the NBA media rights are up after next season. Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT Sports has been an NBA partner for four decades but if the NBA gets their way, that partnership will be over after next season.
The NBA announced that Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon will be their partners in new agreements that will run for 11 years through the 2035-36 season. Reports say the three are paying a combined, ahem, $77 billion dollars over the next 11 seasons for the rights.
They should build a statue of Adam Silver. A big one. Tomorrow.
The timing is so perfect for this to happen. Live sports broadcasts have never been at more of a premium, everybody wants more content, and you have an entire new group of contenders trying to get into the game with deep pockets.
No doubt the league, its owners, its players and its fans should all be celebrating. The owners, and therefore the players, are going to get ridiculous amounts of money from the deals worked out by Silver and company. The fans who want it, are going to get more NBA content than they know what to do with. The same goes for fans of the WNBA.
Sure, like everything else, you will have to access different places to get all of the content. But collectively, we all need to understand this is going to continue to happen and we just need to accept it or accept that you won’t get as much content as someone willing to or able to pay a little more.
Now, as the great Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast my friend.”
First, there is going to be a legal battle over the WBD ‘right to match’ clause they had in their agreement. They say they matched Amazon’s offer. The league said what WBD submitted did not match and put out a press release announcing their new rights deals.
WBD responded with a statement that said, in part, “We have matched the Amazon offer, as we have a contractual right to do, and do not believe the NBA can reject it…We think they have grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-26 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action. We look forward, however, to another great season of the NBA on TNT and Max including our iconic Inside the NBA.”
Translation, our attorneys will call your attorneys, let’s have a great last season together will we fight it out.
Reports have already come out that the legal process has started, so let the games begin.
What we don’t know here is if WBD really wants to match the offer or if they’re looking for some sort of consolation prize to not put up a stink about the ‘right to match.’ Is there something the NBA could offer from a programming standpoint that would interest WBD? Some have suggested the NBA carve out a fourth package and take away from local broadcasts. What if the league came with something that didn’t involve games?
And while all of us will/would miss Inside the NBA, arguably the best show of its kind in the history of sports television, it was interesting to hear what Andrew Marchand of The Athletic said on The Dan Patrick Show, which was to point out the 11-year length of the agreements and wonder how long the show, in its current form, would be around anyway. At most, it would probably last five more years which isn’t even half of the time. This is why Marchand said the show was basically a non-factor in these negotiations. Harsh reality because of how good the show is, but in the end, not all that important in the scheme of things.
Right now, all we can do is sit back and let the legal process go forward. No way this ever sees the inside of a courtroom, but it could be fairly entertaining to watch play out.
In the meantime, I’ve got ‘Roundball Rock’ on repeat and a whole bunch of popcorn ready.
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The Best Thing I’ve Heard/Watched Recently
Jon ‘Stugotz’ Weiner made his return to WFAN this week, in what is now an annual event of him filling in for Boomer Esiason during his July vacation. Stugotz was in with Gregg Giannotti and the two of them had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs. They, of course, talked about the interest Stugotz had in the Brand Manager position at the station. They also talked about his love of sports radio overall and why he likes the way a sports talk radio show runs versus what he and his team on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz do on a daily basis.
“There’s just something about doing live radio,” he said to Giannotti. “It makes me feel alive. There’s something about sticking the joke at the end of the segment and then you hear the bumper in your ear…I just miss it all. I love what we do, I really do, it just feels a bit disjointed. This has a flow to it.”
You can listen to the full conversation by clicking here.
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In Case You Missed It
Derek Futterman had a chance to chat with Boomer Esiason for a feature that ran at the beginning of this week. It is clear Boomer is excited about his new contract with Audacy and WFAN to remain as co-host of Boomer & Gio with Gregg Giannotti in morning drive. I liked this line he said about what he wants the show to be, overall:
“It’s got to be upbeat, it’s got to be positive, [and] it’s got to be a lot of laughs.”
Whenever I tune in to their show, that is exactly what you hear. Especially the upbeat part and the laughs. It’s hard to be positive all the time, especially with the Yankees playing like they are.
If you didn’t get a chance to read the feature, check it out by clicking here.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
