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Before this weekend’s epic French Open, some thought TNT Sports had blundered by paying $65 million annually for rights that previously cost NBC Sports and Tennis Channel $12 million a year. But after Sunday’s thrilling men’s final at Roland-Garros, TNT can safely argue it’s got its money’s worth. It’s also a sign there may be something to Warner Bros. Discovery boss David Zaslav’s widely derided assertion that the media giant does not need the NBA.
Carlos Alcaraz’s thrilling five-set win over Jannik Sinner was a match for the ages. It was one of those sporting events that makes people pick up their phones and tell friends and family to turn on the TV now. Pair that epic with Coco Gauff’s win in the women’s final, and ratings should be strong for TNT’s first time televising the event. TNT “aced” its debut French Open coverage, making it feel like the prestigious event that it is.
ESPN controls U.S. media rights to the other three Grand Slam tournaments: the US Open, Wimbledon, and the Australian Open. With young stars like Alcaraz and Gauff, the sport is poised for a resurgence. Which would make TNT Sports CEO Luis Silberwasser’s 10-year deal with the French Tennis Federation look like a wise investment. As ESPN’s Mike Greenberg wrote on X/Twitter on Sunday: “Carlos Alcaraz is 22. Coco Gauff is 21. We saw the future of tennis in Paris this week, and it looks sensational.”
WBD’s TNT was the odd network out after 36 years when the NBA signed 11-year media deals worth an eye-popping $77 billion with ESPN, NBC Sports, and Amazon Prime Video in 2024. TNT will save between $20 billion (Prime) and $27 billion (NBC) in rights fees from 2025 to 2036. That’s a boatload of cash that can be sunk into rights (and, considering WBD’s current quandary, debt reduction). The green shoots from TNT’s strategy to invest in other sports are starting to sprout.
While it was still negotiating with the NBA last year, TNT cut a five-year deal with ESPN to sublicense two first-round games of the College Football Playoff. Now it’s expected to sublicense at least one CFP semifinal game from 2026 to 2028.
Once it knew the NBA was out the door, TNT got busy, scooping up rights to the French Open, Mountain West Conference, five NASCAR races, and Unrivaled women’s 3-on-3 basketball. It also licensed the iconic Inside the NBA to ESPN for a package of Big 12 football and basketball games. Looking ahead, TNT could pursue the MLB rights, including the Home Run Derby, that expire at ESPN after this year.
If you combine TNT’s new sports-rights deals with its existing NHL, MLB, March Madness, and FIFA soccer rights, the network will still air a lot of sports over the coming years. The money it saves could be used to tackle WBD’s $37 billion debt load as the media giant splits into two publicly traded entities: a Streaming & Studios operation including WBD’s film and TV productions, DC Studios, HBO, HBO Max, and WBD’s film and TV libraries, and a separate Global Networks business that will include TNT Sports in the U.S., Bleacher Report, CNN, Discovery, and free-to-air channels in Europe.
It’s probably good news for TNT that it won’t report to Zaslav anymore. Despite popping up in front-row seats at many of TNT’s biggest sporting events—including Roland-Garros and the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals—his words indicate he never seemed to value sports rights. TNT superstar Charles Barkley believes it was his comment nearly three years ago that WBD didn’t “have to have the NBA” that ultimately led to the breakup with The Association. At the same time, the new TNT could end up televising more sports in the future, and at a cheaper price tag. Maybe there was a method to Zas’s madness.
