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TNT Sports and Warner Bros. Discovery are in their final year of airing NBA broadcasts. Commissioner Adam Silver recently shed a light on why the deal is ending.
The company is currently suing the league, arguing that it has matching rights on the package that ultimately went to Amazon Prime Video. The NBA has continuously claimed that WBD doesn’t have the ability to match the package because it is set to go to a streaming-only service, with other caveats like the service must have a deal in place to broadcast NFL games, too, among others.
In an interview with CNBC Sport author Alex Sherman, Silver shared that while the league’s relationship with TNT Sports goes back decades, its relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery executives David Zaslav and Luis Silberwasser wasn’t as strong, and the partnership was obviously deteriorating.
“It wasn’t a longtime relationship with the people currently running Warner Brothers Discovery,” said Silver. “Ideally in these partnerships, people aren’t pulling out the contract and saying page eight, paragraph three. You’re saying you understand the spirit of what you were trying to accomplish, and that you’re willing to adjust based on changes that might have been unpredictable. So when you’re actually looking at the contract, that’s a sign that the partnership isn’t going as well.”
Many expected the league to keep the broadcast partnership alive due to the popular Inside the NBA program that features former stars like Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith, and is hosted by Ernie Johnson. However, the league ultimately decided it was worth losing the program.
Ultimately, Adam Silver said that the NBA and Warner Bros. Discovery negotiated for months in an attempt to keep the partnership alive, but were unable to reach an agreement.
“There was just never a meeting of the minds between us and Warner Bros. Discovery,” Silver said. “We negotiated hard with them over several months, and they negotiated with us, and as I said, we just couldn’t reach a deal.”
