Warner Bros. Discovery executives thought they had given the National Basketball Association a proposal it would accept.
In April, after months of negotiations, the company made an offer to pay billions of dollars to the league for the right to continue broadcasting its games on TNT, as well as its Max streaming service. TNT has been broadcasting NBA games for years ’80 and his “Inside the NBA” is widely considered one of the best sports programs ever.
But with the end of Warner Bros. Discovery’s exclusive negotiating window looming, the NBA insisted on changing the package of games the company would receive, according to two people familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations. Warner Bros. Discovery objected, and while the two sides continued to negotiate, the company now finds itself on the verge of losing the rights to televise the sport with which it has become inextricably linked. And on Friday night, Hall of Famer Charles Barkley said on “Inside the NBA” that he will retire from TV after next season.
“The first thing everyone thinks of when you say TNT is the NBA,” said John Skipper, former president of ESPN.
Media companies, including Warner Bros. Discovery, were prepared for tough negotiations with the NBA. Sports rights remain an extremely valuable asset for traditional television networks, and companies are also increasingly seeing them as a way to attract more subscribers to their streaming services.
The league has made it clear that it wants a sizable raise on the roughly $2.66 billion in total it receives annually, on average, from Warner Bros. Discovery and ESPN under its current rights deals, which took effect in 2016. executives at those companies knew that if they wanted to keep the NBA rights, they would have to pay more for fewer games so that the NBA could create a third package of games to sell.
Disney, the parent company of ESPN, exited the exclusive negotiation period with a handshake deal to continue broadcasting NBA games. Meanwhile, NBC and Amazon quickly stepped in and both are negotiating packages with the NBA consisting of games currently owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and additional assets, according to three people familiar with the negotiations. This month, the Wall Street Journal said the league is closing deals with ESPN, NBC and Amazon that would represent about $76 billion in revenue over 11 years.
This leaves Warner Bros. Discovery on the outside looking in, generating no shortage of tension within the company.
The public face of that rancor was Barkley, whose wit and candor made him a driving force behind TNT’s critically acclaimed coverage over the past two decades.
Barkley has publicly criticized Warner Bros. Discovery leadership for its handling of media rights negotiations. He supported network employees, gave interviews the network would have preferred not to and, after Friday night’s NBA Finals game, announced that he planned to retire after next season, Warner Bros. Discovery’s final year with l the current agreement.
“No matter what happens, next year will be my last year on television,” Barkley said. “I just want to say thank you to my NBA family. You guys have been great to me. My heart is full of joy and gratitude. But I will pass the baton at the end of next year.”
Barkley’s surprise announcement was the latest twist in a saga that began in 2022 when Discovery purchased WarnerMedia — whose assets included channels such as HBO, TNT and TBS — and Warner Bros. Discovery was formed.
Many, though not all, longtime executives who had worked in the NBA for WarnerMedia left the company after the Discovery purchase. This meant that many of the people the NBA had long-standing relationships with were gone. David Zaslav, who had run Discovery and is now CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery, hired Luis Silberwasser, a Univision executive, to run TNT Sports.
The business relationship got off to a rocky start following comments Zaslav made at an investor conference in 2022. He noted that he liked the NBA and had known Adam Silver, the league’s commissioner, for 20 years. But as far as business goes, Zaslav said, “We don’t have to have the NBA.”
Those comments worried Warner Bros. Discovery employees focused on its NBA assets and, when combined with reports of financial constraints at the company, raised doubts in the league office about the company’s commitment to the NBA, according to people who are familiar with the reaction who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation. In a radio interview with “The Dan Patrick Show” last month, Barkley said he thinks Zaslav’s comments probably upset Silver.
Warner Bros. Discovery has the contractual right to match third party offers. It will likely try to match Amazon’s offering, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking.
But NBA lawyers are still trying to determine how the contract defines Warner Bros. Discovery’s gaming rights, according to two people familiar with the negotiations, given that the company would like to show many of the games on TNT and Amazon would broadcast them in streaming on Prime Video. It’s a complicated issue
