NBA approves new media deals with Disney (ABC/ESPN), Comcast (NBC), and Amazon for 11 years, $77 billion. Update: NBA REJECTS WBD's (TNT Sports) deal

[In The Zone '98]

Somebody need to bring Jalen in

He worked well with Jacoby. I didn't like him on tv.

 

[Morethan1]

Somebody need to bring Jalen in

I hope Amazon does

 

[Lord Beasley]

KH wouldve shined on nbc.

 

[Thavoiceofthevoiceless]

No disrespect ya nikkas sounding hella broke and old right now. The peacock shyt is 8 dollars a month. That’s less than a Crunchyroll subscription like what are we doing here man?

Those streaming services are going to continue to increase as who do you think is going to end up footing the bill for all the money they're throwing around to these sports leagues?

 

[KateFabersBoyfriend]

These bozos plus SAS who will try to insert himself into this because he's a clout vampire. Terrible.

Somebody need to bring Jalen in

Why?

 

[Luke Cage]

I will miss inside the nba if it doesn't come back.
I've always been of the opinion. that the journalistic approach to recreational sports is stupid.
It's a game. You're making a show about a game. Therefore you are making game shows.
Hence the reason the popular hosts win Emmy's instead of Pulitzer Prizes.

But that said if this ends up making the games more accessible i'm willing to live with it. Main reason i don't watch as many game as i want, is because i don't have cable and they often make you jump through hoops to get app access to games. Like i can't access league pass without a subscription to some other service i don't plan on using.

 

[K-Apps]

Around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, the NBA’s media and distribution executive Bill Koenig emailed Warner Bros. Discovery’s Luis Silberwasser to explain exactly why the league wouldn’t allow WBD to use its matching rights for a package of league games that Amazon had successfully bid on. Presumably, of course, WBD C.E.O. David Zaslavand his attorneys were fully prepared for this eventuality. A half-hour later, as the NBA sent out a statement announcing its $77 billion worth of new, 11-year media deals with ESPN, NBCUniversal, and Amazon, WBD’s lawyers were already drafting the lawsuit that the company plans to file against the league, possibly as soon as tomorrow.
The mushrooming legal showdown is, in many ways, the culmination of a subtle breakdown in relations—missed signals, bad communication, frustrated dealmaking, and a couple negotiating misplays—that was, in retrospect, long in the making. Years before negotiations had started in earnest, ESPN and WBD executives had indicated during private conversations that they both wanted to renew their deals with the NBA. And NBA executives reciprocated the fealty… because, well, who wouldn’t want to renew a deal with a long-term partner? After all, WBD’s TNT had been carrying NBA games since the ’80s.
But underneath the bromides and platitudes about partnership, Koenig and NBA commissioner Adam Silveralso indicated that they wanted to move from two media partners to three, and design one of those deals for a streamer. That’s when the first fissures in the NBA’s relationship with WBD appeared.

The Backstory​

By early fall, the NBA had started exchanging its first re-up proposals with ESPN and WBD. Activity increased just before the exclusive negotiating window started in mid-March. Initially, it looked like deals could be had. A successful renewal negotiation within the exclusivity window wasn’t unprecedented. Back in 2014, ESPN and Turner signed their renewals in the middle of the negotiating window, preventing NBA rights from hitting the open market.
But the NBA’s desire to find that streaming partner—YouTube, Netflix, and Apple were all considered to be in the mix, in addition to Amazon—caused talks to slow down considerably. The league couldn’t officially negotiate with Amazon until the negotiating window ended. So WBD executives made the unusual suggestion that the NBA allow Amazon into the window, per multiple sources. That way, it would be easier to figure out exactly what would be in each package. The NBA readily agreed and reached out to ESPN, which also agreed. (WBD sources insist that the idea to include Amazon came from both ESPN and WBD.)
The NBA already knew who it was dealing with at Disney. Over the years, everyone from Bob Iger to Jimmy Pitaroto media deals E.V.P. Roz Durant had repeatedly expressed to league executives that ABC and ESPN wanted to renew its contract. Amazon, meanwhile, had lusted after the NBA for years, attracted by the league’s demos and international appeal. The streamer had established a relationship by picking up NBA rights for Brazil as well as a WNBA package. At every opportunity in conversation with NBA officials, Amazon Prime executives Mike Hopkins and Jay Marine would emphasize their scale and technical prowess. They also made sure that NBA leadership saw how successfully they’d handled the NFL’s Thursday Night Football. It worked. NBA officials pored over TNF ratings and paid special attention to its production quality.
But they were less familiar with their negotiating partners at WBD. Sure, TNT had been carrying league games for decades, but the network had also transitioned during that time from Turner Entertainment to Time Warner (and, briefly, AOL Time Warner) to WarnerMedia, and now WBD. Meanwhile, the league’s biggest longtime supporters had left the company. David Levy, who orchestrated the last NBA rights deal for TNT, was ousted in mid-2019. Turner Sports president Lenny Daniels, who actually participated in some early renewal talks, left at the end of 2022. Levy and Daniels were well-liked throughout the NBA’s Manhattan office.
Zaz took over after the merger in May 2022 and hired Silberwasser, a former Discovery hand, soon thereafter. While both had decades of experience at the highest levels of the business, they didn’t have strong relationships at the NBA. As talks progressed, inadvertently or not, the two operated in a sort of good-cop, bad-cop routine. After Zaslav would tell Wall Street that WBD didn’t need the NBA and that he would be fiscally prudent in any negotiation, Silberwasser would smooth things over with Koenig and Scott Kaufman-Ross, an NBA senior vice president who reported to Koenig.
ESPN quickly agreed to its package, which prioritized exclusive access to the NBA Finals and a guarantee that the network would be able to stream games via ESPN Flagship, which they plan to launch next year. Amazon also came to a relatively quick agreement for playoff games, including the conference finals, and play-in games. Amazon didn’t prioritize the regular season as much, but it did want the in-season tournament.
WBD, for its part, was left in a position where it would have to pay substantially more money—about $2.1 billion to $2.2 billion per year, according to my source—for a package that was not nearly as good as the one it currently had at around $1.2 billion per year on average. Adding to WBD’s frustration was the sense that the NBA was constantly moving the goalposts during the process. Every time they were close to a deal, WBD executives felt that the NBA would change the offer. For example, as the negotiating window was ending, the NBA told WBD that it was taking five conference finals series away from TNT, which would have left it with six. WBD executives were surprised by this news, since they thought they were getting at least one of them every year. At the end of the window, WBD executives were also surprised to learn that the NBA wanted a universal out after seven years.
WBD executives felt like they were negotiating in good faith, but never came close enough to cut a deal. Zaz and Silberwasser tried to negotiate on price and the contents of the package, but the NBA stalemated them—insisting, among other things, that everyone wanted more and better contests. For what it’s worth, WBD wasn’t the only bidder that felt as if the NBA was constantly tweaking the packages. Disney, for example, was not happy when the NBA told them that they would have 10 conference finals—not 11—during the 11-year deal. Disney was also frustrated about losing exclusive access to the WNBA Finals—it will only carry five over the next 11 years. But those moves didn’t kill their deal.
Ultimately, Zaz and Silberwasser thought they had leverage; they didn’t believe any other media company would pay as much for the package on offer. So on April 22, as the window ended, Zaz and Silberwasser made a startling declaration to Koenig: Moving forward, negotiations would start from scratch—they wouldn’t build off the work from the exclusive window. Their last offer in the negotiating window would be their best one.

 

[K-Apps]

Part 2

The NBC Opening​

As they would quickly find out, they had vastly misjudged the market. NBC was uniquely motivated to get a deal done. Mark Lazarus, who’d been ousted by Turner about 15 years earlier, had especially deep connections with NBA executives. Laz had previously made clear to the league that Comcast—NBC, Peacock, etcetera—was interested, but few took his comments seriously. But NBC was deadly serious: They viewed the NBA as the perfect component to drive the growth of Peacock, their slow-to-take streamer. The company had already learned firsthand how the NFL, Premier League, and college football could drive streaming subscriptions. Laz believed that an NBA deal could add another sport to Peacock and help give it a year-round sports offering.
But there was one more factor at play—well, maybe two. In February, shortly before the negotiating window opened, ESPN, WBD, and Fox had announced plans to launch a sports streaming service that was initially dubbed “Spulu” but was eventually named Venu (not much better, but alas…). Not only had Comcast been kept out of the partnership, but losing out on the NBA would mean that the Venu bundle would contain both Disney and WBD’s putative rights packages. All of a sudden, Comcast became a very motivated bidder, fully cognizant that outbidding an incumbent would be a tall and expensive order. They were also motivated by the fact, as I’ve reported previously, that depriving TNT of the NBA would weaken its leverage in carriage fee negotiations with their Xfinity cable systems.
The day after WBD walked away, NBC approached the league with its blockbuster $2.5 billion per year offer for the package that WBD had been trying to win. The amount blew away WBD, which decided not to get involved in bidding up the number any further. Instead, WBD told the NBA that it would rely on the matching rights in its contract. The NBA thought WBD would have a hard time matching NBC’s bid, which included two primetime windows on broadcast TV. WBD, of course, doesn’t own a broadcast channel. It seemed like a tensely negotiated deal might soon become the province of litigators.
Ultimately, WBD decided that it would bid on the Amazon package instead of the NBC deal it had coveted—a move that caught the NBA off guard. WBD believed that it had the right to bid on the Amazon package because it contained programming (conference finals, playoffs, Thursday night games) that came out of its own current deal. Plus, it could use Max to satisfy the league’s streaming ambitions. On Monday, WBD announced its intention to use its matching rights on Amazon’s package. Two days later, Koenig sent Silberwasser the email saying that WBD’s matching rights weren’t applicable. Koenig told Silberwasser that the package was streaming-only, not the streaming-and-cable package that WBD was counter-proposing. Koenig also outlined that Amazon put its first three years of rights fees in escrow, meaning that payments would be made automatically. WBD offered a letter of credit, which the NBA did not view as equal. Koenig also referenced Prime’s enormous reach vis-à-vis Max—a dig, to be sure.
WBD responded to Koenig’s email with a statement that both encapsulated the months of testy dealmaking and foreshadowed an even more litigious future. “We think they have grossly misinterpreted our contractual rights with respect to the 2025-26 season and beyond, and we will take appropriate action.”

 

[Joe Sixpack]

Those streaming services are going to continue to increase as who do you think is going to end up footing the bill for all the money they're throwing around to these sports leagues?

Exactly

By 2025 Peacock will raise their prices again

I just got an email that they raising it a couple days ago and there's nothing even on there now that I watch. The Office repeats are on Comedy Central

 

[Don Homer]

You prefer Malika Andrews? I don’t see anything wrong with Lefkoe and he knows his stuff.

no nikka. What you said just doesnt make sense. Adam lefkoe is not a solid host. And malika being trash doesnt change that

 

[aceboon]

Silver probably doesn't even want Chuck on TV/Streaming going forward if he's going to keep saying shyt like this

 

[In The Zone '98]

Silver probably doesn't even want Chuck on TV/Streaming going forward if he's going to keep saying shyt like this

He's already said as much.

 

[SchoolboyC]

Silver probably doesn't even want Chuck on TV/Streaming going forward if he's going to keep saying shyt like this

How does choosing Amazon over TNT mean they don’t care about fans if more fans have access to Amazon?

If there’s anyone he needs to be mad at it’s goofy ass Zaslav

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

How does choosing Amazon over TNT mean they don’t care about fans if more fans have access to Amazon?

If there’s anyone he needs to be mad at it’s goofy ass Zaslav

More fans don't have access to Amazon, really. Because WBD was going to simulcast the games on Max and TNT. In total, that is very close to the supposed 200 million subscribers worldwide that Amazon has.

NBA just wants it to be streaming only and Chuck makes a good point. Everyone in media knows that this is a wild overpay for all parties involved, advertising dollars have fallen... meaning that by year 5 or 6 or 7 the reality is they will likely be losing money on these deals.

Amazon doesn't care because it's more about their ecosystem than advertising dollars. ESPN on the other hand is just going to go further into debt...

At the end of the day, it will likely be Amazon, Apple and Netflix who are controlling most of the market.

 

[SchoolboyC]

More fans don't have access to Amazon, really. Because WBD was going to simulcast the games on Max and TNT. In total, that is very close to the supposed 200 million subscribers worldwide that Amazon has.

NBA just wants it to be streaming only and Chuck makes a good point. Everyone in media knows that this is a wild overpay for all parties involved, advertising dollars have fallen... meaning that by year 5 or 6 or 7 the reality is they will likely be losing money on these deals.

Amazon doesn't care because it's more about their ecosystem than advertising dollars. ESPN on the other hand is just going to go further into debt...

At the end of the day, it will likely be Amazon, Apple and Netflix who are controlling most of the market.

That’s fair, my question would be how many people have access to both? I for instance have TNT & Max, so if we’re adding those with TNT to Max subscribers, how many households are being counted twice?