Unless someone calls a time-out soon, the legal game between the NBA And Discovery of Warner Bros. on small screen basketball rights that are still David Zaslav– The billionaire-led media company appears set to take a serious 2-for-1 hit.
As promised, the Adam Silver-the league led by the president responded forcefully to the heavily redacted WBD Lawsuit filed on July 26 on rights Amazon was awarded earlier this year in $77 billion multi-outlet deal for the 2025-26 season and beyond. In Hail Mary fashion, bankrupt WBD and its subsidiary Turner Broadcasting System are seeking a court order to block the Jeff Bezos-owned streamer from broadcasting games until everything is resolved.
Unsurprisingly, the NBA, which has deals with ABC, NBC and Amazon for the next 11 years for the league and the WNBA, wants to block this deal. In fact, the NBA wants to end the whole thing with its former partner of nearly 30 years.
In a late-night motion to dismiss that will be argued in person in a New York state court on Oct. 4, just under three weeks before the start of the NBA’s 79th regular season, the NBA made it clear that it’s not playing games. Put simply, the gist of the league’s argument is this: Sorry, WBD, but you’re just not important enough to the NBA, and it seems you don’t have the money.
“For example, to ensure financial security for billions of dollars in rights payments over the life of the 11-year agreement, Amazon agreed, among othersto maintain an escrow account from which broadcast rights will be automatically paid to the NBA as they become due,” reads the supporting legal memorandum from league attorneys Sullivan & Cromwell.TBS “The NBA has eliminated that protection by instead giving itself the ability to provide the NBA with syndicated letters of credit that the NBA can only access if TBS’s payments are late. That’s not even the same thing.”
Ouch! (Read the NBA’s scathing response to WBD’s lawsuit over basketball broadcast rights here)
If it didn’t hurt the unstable WBD, which took a painful $9.1 billion depreciation recently, partly due to the loss of its long-standing NBA rightsThe league’s statement that the traditional media giant simply doesn’t have the reach and scope needed in the 21st century must really hurt.
The plaintiffs’ claims fail outright because the MRE did not give TBS the right to match Amazon’s offer. As the complaint acknowledges, TBS’s match rights are limited to third-party offers for NBA game distribution rights that TBS “currently enjoys” under the NBA/TBS Agreement. TBS does not “currently enjoy” the rights covered by Amazon’s offer, namely the rights to distribute live NBA games on a disaggregated, standalone basis via an Internet-delivered SVOD service. Instead, TBS’s current rights are limited to distributing games as part of a linear cable television network, along with the rest of the network’s programming. While the complaint notes that individual NBA games are currently broadcast on Max, a SVOD streaming service owned by WBD, the source of the rights to distribute those games in this manner is not With respect to the NBA/TBS Agreement, Plaintiffs’ claims fail outright because the MRE did not give TBS the right to match Amazon’s offer. As the Complaint acknowledges, TBS’s match rights are limited to third-party offers for NBA game distribution rights that TBS “currently enjoys” under the NBA/TBS Agreement. (Compl. TBS does not “currently enjoy” the rights covered by Amazon’s offer, namely, the rights to distribute live NBA games on a disaggregated, standalone basis via an Internet-delivered SVOD service. Instead, TBS’s current rights are limited to distributing games as part of a linear cable television network, along with the rest of the network’s programming. While the Complaint notes that individual NBA games are currently broadcast on Max, a SVOD streaming service owned by WBD, the source of the rights to distribute those games in this manner is not the NBA/TBS agreement, but rather an entirely separate agreement between NBA Media Ventures, LLC and another WBD subsidiary, Bleacher Report, Inc., which does not not contain corresponding rights.
To rub salt in the wound, the NBA also alleges that WBD lacks the clout to effectively promote league games on either TNT or the Max streamer – unlike Amazon, which will use its widely watched account NFL Property of Thursday Night Football.
After hitting numerous all-time lows in recent months, WBD stock saw a slight uptick at the close on Friday. Still, that must be cold comfort to investors like John Malone. The company’s stock has fallen about 70% since Warner Bros. and Discovery, formerly owned by AT&T, merged under Zaslav in April 2022. Adding insult to injury, a league source told me that Zas “shot himself in the foot” when it came to renewing basketball rights when he joked that “we don’t need the NBA” a few years ago.
Now, with the much-touted Disney-Fox-WBD sports streaming joint venture Venu on hold due to a legal challenge from FuboTV, WBD could really use those NBA rights to help its struggling bottom line.
In this fight, WBD says he is determined to win it, no matter how much blood is left on the field. As a TNT Sports spokesperson told Deadline this morning:
We maintain our position that the NBA’s actions are unjustified and we are confident that we have fulfilled our contractual right to match the third party’s offer. Not only is this our contractual right, it is in the best interest of fans who want to continue to enjoy our industry-leading NBA content with the choice and flexibility we provide through our widely distributed platforms, including TNT and Max. We will file our opposition in the coming weeks.
It should be noted that the October 4 hearing on the NBA’s attempt to dismiss WBD’s complaint will take place on the same day that the LA Lakers will play the Minnesota Timberwolves in a preseason game in Palm Springs, and the 2024 champion Boston Celtics will play the 2023 champion Denver Nuggets in Abu Dhabi. Neither game will air on TNT. However, this past season, TNT will air NBA games, with the Lakers and Timberwolves’ official home opener on October 22.
It appears to be the last NBA Opening Night for the outlet in a very long time.
