Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t out of the NBA Business Just Yet

Consider Warner Bros. Discovery the new Sixth Man of NBA media.

The longtime broadcast partner is set to lose out on rights to air regular season and playoff games on TNT starting next year, but, according to sources that spoke with The Wall Street Journal this weekend, WBD has secured the right to use NBA content to make new shows for the next decade. And all it took was one big breach of contract lawsuit.

Jump Ball

In July, the NBA announced it had secured a spate of media rights deals worth some $80 billion over the next 11 years with three broadcast partners: Disney (to air games on ABC and ESPN), Amazon (to air games on Amazon Prime Video), and Comcast’s NBCUniversal (to air games on both the NBC broadcast network and streamer Peacock).

That left WBD, which has been airing NBA games on TNT since 1989, sulking on the sidelines. And illegally so, WBD quickly argued, claiming that the league violated its right to match any competitor offer (WBD claimed it matched Amazon’s offer for a package of 66 regular season games per year plus some post-season play). But before the court case kicked off, the two sides opted for compromise:

• In addition to rights to NBA footage to keep making new shows in the US and abroad, WBD scored the rights to keep using NBA content for digital platforms such as Bleacher Report and House of Highlights, per the WSJ.
• NBA content is massively popular on social media. At the end of the 2022-23 season, the league announced that its in-house @NBA accounts drew 18 billion views across platforms, more than any other pro sports league.

The two sides are expected to announce the deal, to last 11 years, early this week, sources told the WSJ.

Inside Scoring: WBD wasted no time charting its game-free NBA future. Separately this weekend, the company reached a deal to license its highly acclaimed “Inside the NBA” studio show to Disney’s ESPN, starting next season. (Licensing content is becoming a bit of a trend at the network; it currently licenses The Pat McAfee Show, the multi-hour daytime program from the NFL kicker-turned-media personality). So good news, fans of Chuck, Shaq, Kenny and Ernie: You won’t have to bid farewell just yet. In related news: NBC somehow hasn’t locked down the rights to bring back John Tesh’s “Roundball Rock,” the iconic theme song that powered the network’s 1990s NBA broadcasts.