Warner Bros. Discovery Sues N.B.A. Over TV Rights Deal
Warner Bros. Discovery Sues N.B.A. Over TV Rights Deal - The New York Times
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Warner Bros. Discovery Sues N.B.A. Over Rights Deal
The company is trying to make the league accept its match of Amazon’s bid to broadcast games starting with the 2025-26 season.
Warner Bros. Discovery sued the National Basketball Association on Friday in an attempt to force the league to accept its offer to match Amazon’s bid to broadcast games.
On Wednesday, the N.B.A. announced that it had reached media rights agreements with Disney, Comcast and Amazon. The deals are scheduled to take effect in the 2025-26 season and will collectively pay the N.B.A. about $77 billion over the next 11 years. That left Warner Bros. Discovery, a current rights holder, set to lose the league at the end of next season.
“Given the N.B.A.’s unjustified rejection of our matching of a third-party offer, we have taken legal action to enforce our rights,” Warner Bros. Discovery said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed in New York State Supreme Court. “We strongly believe this is not just our contractual right, but also in the best interest of fans who want to keep watching our industry-leading N.B.A. content.”
Mike Bass, a spokesman for the league, said, “Warner Bros. Discovery’s claims are without merit, and our lawyers will address them.”
Amazon entered the negotiations during Warner Bros. Discovery’s exclusive negotiating window at Warner Bros. Discovery’s request, according to two people familiar with the talks. During that period, Warner Bros. Discovery balked at the N.B.A.’s request for last-minute changes to the company’s package, and the exclusive window closed without a deal.
Although conversations between the two sides continued, Warner Bros. Discovery, whose TNT network has broadcast N.B.A. games since the 1980s, found itself on the outside as the N.B.A. quickly moved on to other partners. The company’s executives insisted privately that they planned to exercise their matching rights under the current nine-year agreement.
The N.B.A. sent Warner Bros. Discovery a letter saying the matching offer was significantly different from Amazon’s and did not constitute a match, according to a person familiar with the letter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was not made public.
While Amazon planned to exclusively stream games, Warner Bros. Discovery planned to simulcast games on TNT and its Max streaming service. The league considered Amazon’s greater global reach another element that Warner Bros. Discovery couldn’t match. Amazon had also placed three years of payments into an escrow account, though Warner Bros. Discovery had a letter of credit assuring its ability to make payments.
The relationship between the N.B.A. and Warner Bros. Discovery had been deteriorating for a few years. At an investor conference in 2022, David Zaslav, Warner Bros. Discovery’s chief executive, infamously said, “We don’t need the N.B.A.”
The jewel of the company’s N.B.A. coverage is the TNT studio show “ Inside the N.B.A.,” which features the former players Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith as analysts along with the host, Ernie Johnson. Barkley has been critical of Warner Bros. Discovery’s handling of its relationship with the N.B.A., but on Friday he turned his critique toward the league.
“Clearly the N.B.A. has wanted to break up with us from the beginning,” Barkley said in a statement on Instagram. “I’m not sure TNT ever had a chance. TNT matched the money, but the league knows Amazon and these tech companies are the only ones willing to pay for the rights when they double in the future.”
He added, “It’s a sad day when owners and commissioners choose money over the fans.”
Tania Ganguli writes about money, power and influence in sports and how it impacts the broader culture. More about Tania Ganguli
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