NBA Renews Push to Dismiss TNT Sports Media-Rights Lawsuit

The NBA has made its final push to have TNT Sports’ lawsuit against the league dismissed, arguing the network’s purported match of the Amazon rights deal was instead a counteroffer.

Responding to TNT Sports’ recent claim that the league inserted a series of “purposely onerous and immaterial” contractual provisions—in effect “poison pills” designed to thwart the network and protect Amazon—the league said prior case law explicitly allows for extensive customization in its dealmaking.

“Under New York law, ‘every competitor has a right to attempt to win a contract by offering terms which its competitors can’t meet,’ and the seller is ‘free to seek and accept such terms as were consistent with its legitimate business interests,’” the league wrote in a filing late Wednesday with the Supreme Court of the State of New York, where the case is being heard.

In making that argument, the NBA cited a previous case involving the league itself, Am. Broadcast Co. vs. Kennedy from 1973, in which CBS gained NBA media rights previously held by ABC. Similar to the current claim from the Warner Bros. Discovery–owned TNT Sports, ABC then alleged a conspiracy and claimed NBA owners dealt in “bad faith,” but that suit was dismissed.

Following Up

The NBA’s latest argument seeks to advance a prior motion to dismiss filed in late August, one in which the league argued TNT Sports improperly sought to rewrite several key provisions of the Amazon agreement to facilitate a contract match. Many of those arguments were revisited in the latest response.

“[TNT Sports does] not deny, as [the NBA] stressed, that [the network] revised eight of the Amazon offer’s 27 sections, changed 11 definitions, struck nearly 300 words, and added over 270 new words,” the league wrote. “Plaintiffs’ redline was a counteroffer, not a match. That should be the end of this case.”

Without an immediate ruling to dismiss by Judge Joel Cohen or a settlement, the case will almost certainly intersect with the 2024–2025 NBA season. The NBA preseason begins Friday, and the regular season starts Oct. 22. 

The two sides have agreed to an expedited schedule, and a trial, should the case get to that point, is tentatively set for early April. Appeals, however, could see the dispute potentially drag into the 2025–2026 season, when the new set of national rights that also include ESPN and NBC Sports in addition to Amazon are due to start.

Amazon’s “C” package with the NBA—estimated at more than $1.8 billion per year and including a conference final every other season—also features early-round playoffs in line with what is currently on NBA TV, weekly regular-season broadcasts, the Emirates NBA Cup, and WNBA rights, among other assets.