NBA rejects Warner Bros. Discovery’s matching offer to retain games, setting up potential legal showdown

By Liam Reilly, CNN

New York (CNN) — The NBA on Wednesday rejected Warner Bros. Discovery’s offer to match a $1.8 billion per year bid from Amazon Prime Video to broadcast the league’s games, setting up a potential legal showdown between the media company and its longtime sports partner.

“Warner Bros. Discovery’s most recent proposal did not match the terms of Amazon Prime Video’s offer and, therefore, we have entered into a long-term arrangement with Amazon,” the NBA said in a statement.

The league said that its new 11-year media deal with Amazon will complement its latest slate of broadcast, cable, and streaming agreements, which were also inked with NBCUniversal and Disney, worth a combined $77 billion.

“All three partners have also committed substantial resources to promote the league and enhance the fan experience,” the NBA said. “We are grateful to Turner Sports for its award-winning coverage of the NBA and look forward to another season of the NBA on TNT.”

The announcement comes less than 48 hours after WBD, CNN’s parent company, notified the league of its intention to match Amazon’s bid in order to retain the right to broadcast the games, a deal that threatens the media company’s cable and streaming ambitions.

In a statement Wednesday, WBD criticized the league’s decision, saying it had “grossly misinterpreted” its contractual rights and vowed to take “appropriate action.”

“We have matched the Amazon offer, as we have a contractual right to do, and do not believe the NBA can reject it,” a TNT spokesperson said in a statement. “In doing so, they are rejecting the many fans who continue to show their unwavering support for our best-in-class coverage, delivered through the full combined reach of WBD’s video-first distribution platforms — including TNT, home to our four-decade partnership with the league, and Max, our leading streaming service. We think they have grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-26 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action.

WBD executives have suggested in recent weeks that if the NBA declined to accept its matching offer it could bring a lawsuit to enforce its contractual rights to match another bid. The months of dealmaking and uncertainty over the NBA media rights had set off alarms both inside and out of WBD, raising the prospect that TNT Sports’ nearly four decades as an NBA partner and home to the beloved “Inside the NBA” show could come to an end.

“Our new global media agreements with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon will maximize the reach and accessibility of NBA games for fans in the United States and around the world,” Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, said in a statement. “These partners will distribute our content across a wide range of platforms and help transform the fan experience over the next decade.”

Under the agreements, national games will be distributed across Prime Video, NBC’s Peacock streaming service, and ESPN’s direct-to-consumer platform, which remains forthcoming. Some 75 regular-season games will be broadcast on TV seasonally.

Disney will retain the NBA Finals, a Christmas Day game broadcast, Wednesday games on ESPN, Saturday prime time games on ABC and Sunday showcase packages.

NBC, meanwhile, will telecast opening night, new Sunday night prime time games and Tuesday regionalized games. It will also carry games on Peacock on Mondays and the NBA All-Star game.

Finishing out the trio, Amazon’s Prime Video will stream the emirates NBA Cup, SoFi NBA Play-In Tournament, and both Thursday and Friday night games. Amazon will also serve as the league’s strategic partner and third-party global destination for the NBA League Pass.

The agreements include more nationally broadcast games than in previous years, the NBA shared, adding that all national games will also be available on broadly distributed steaming services.

As reports emerged in recent months that the league had agreed to multi-billion dollar offers from other media companies, the fate of TNT’s “Inside the NBA” was thrown into question, prompting host Charles Barkley to publicly decry what he believed was WBD’s bungling of the deal.

“These people I work with, they screwed this thing up, clearly; and we have zero idea what’s gonna happen,” Barkley said in May. “I don’t feel good, I’m not gonna lie — especially when they came out and said we bought college football. I was like, ‘Well damn, they could’ve used that money to buy the NBA.”

Barkley’s comments came after WBD inked a new five-year deal with Disney’s ESPN to air two first-round College Football Playoff games this season and two additional quarterfinal matchups beginning in 2026, adding to the company’s live sports offerings.

The basketball Hall of Famer later announced plans to retire next year after TNT’s NBA broadcast rights expire.

“I have made the decision that no matter what happens, next year is going to be my last year on television,” he said.

The battle over NBA rights comes as legacy media companies struggle to retain audiences, with viewers opting to leave cable bundles behind in favor of cheaper, on-demand content. As streaming services like Netflix have continued to attract and further carve up audiences, live sporting events have continuously proved impervious to declines in viewership felt across traditional television.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.