There is no guarantee the $110 billion Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger will happen. But if it does, it would create a sports media colossus with few rivals.
After Netflix walked away from a planned deal with WBD, Paramount now has a clear path to pursue its own merger. David Ellison’s company, however, intends to buy all of WBD, instead of Netflix’s more targeted pursuit of just the studios and streaming businesses.
As a result, the pact—if completed—would bring together all of WBD’s TNT Sports and Paramount’s CBS Sports. It would also jettison a previously planned spin-off of Discovery Global from WBD, which TNT Sports would have been a part of.
The combined sports rights of TNT Sports and WBD Sports are highlighted by:
- The 11-year deal between CBS and the NFL, currently running through 2033 and worth about $2.1 billion annually. That league, however, is looking to reopen all of its domestic rights after the 2029 season, which particularly exposes linear operators such as Paramount to heightened financial risk. Despite that, the company expressed confidence it would “be in business with the NFL for a long time.”
- TNT’s seven-year pact with MLB, worth about $3.75 billion and running through 2028. League commissioner Rob Manfred is aiming to significantly restructure MLB’s national and local media rights after the 2028 season, meaning a new rights deal with Paramount or anybody else could look very different then.
- The joint CBS Sports-TNT Sports deal for March Madness, worth about $1.1 billion annually and running through 2032. This unique pact has seen the two networks working together on this event since 2011, when each company was in a different corporate structure.
- CBS’ long-run as a rights holder to The Masters, which began in 1956, has been continued through a series of handshake agreements, and is now supplemented by separate coverage on ESPN and Amazon. The network also shares the primary PGA Tour rights with NBC under a deal running through 2030, worth about $700 million.
- The new Paramount pact with UFC, worth $7.7 billion over seven years. Paramount also possesses the media rights to TKO’s new Zuffa Boxing promotion.
- TNT Sports’ seven-year pact with the NHL, worth nearly $1.6 billion. That league is reportedly among several that are now pushing for early renewals to solidify rights fees before network suitors get squeezed financially by forthcoming price hikes from the NFL.
- Paramount’s extensive presence in soccer includes the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and the NWSL, among others.
- A heavy presence by both networks in college sports that includes rights to the Big Ten, Pac-12, Big East, Conference USA, among others, as well as the Army-Navy football game, and sublicensing for parts of the College Football Playoff.
The two most prominent rivals to that hefty battery of content are Disney’s ESPN, which has a foothold in every major U.S. pro league and a huge presence in college sports, and Comcast’s NBC Sports, which can make the same claim, except for the NHL, and also has the Olympics. The NBA would be the most notable absence in a combined Paramount-WBD portfolio.
Like those others, a combined TNT Sports-CBS Sports would have reach across broadcast TV, cable, and streaming platforms.
What remains to be seen, however, is how the cultures, business strategy, leadership, and on-air talent of TNT Sports and CBS Sports will mesh. Despite the productive collaboration around March Madness, the two networks are rather different in many respects, and the blending of the two, like most mergers, will likely involve plenty of bumps along the way.
Because of the partisan regulatory approval process that awaits, any deal closing is likely to be late this year, at the earliest.
