TNT Sports’ fate with the NBA could be officially sealed by the end of Monday.
Warner Bros. Discovery, the network’s parent company, has until the end of Monday to match any part of the NBA’s new media-rights deal. If it attempts to match any package, it will likely be Amazon’s $1.8 billion–per-year agreement. (WBD currently pays the league $1.2 billion under the current deal, which expires after next season.)
Update, July 22, 3:53 p.m. ET: Warner Bros. Discovery announced its intention to match in a statement on Monday afternoon. Read more about the decision here.
Matching might be easier said than done.
“Amazon spent I think a bunch of time trying to construct the offer in a way Warner wouldn’t be able to match,” The Ringer’s Bill Simmons recently said on The Town podcast. According to Simmons, the Amazon deal contains a promise to pay multiple years up front into an escrow account. “And now Warner, which doesn’t have a ton of cash, would then have to take on way more debt and basically risk the future of the company, I would say, to pay for three years of that. That’s like $5.5 billion.” (Amazon’s cash reserves are dozens of times larger than WBD’s.)
The NBA appears to have learned its lesson on the matching-rights situation. The Athletic reported over the weekend that the new media-rights deal won’t have them for its three partners.
The league has been in purgatory since finalizing its agreements as it waits for WBD to decide whether it’s going to attempt to match or move on. Should WBD pass, it may mean the 2024–25 season would mark the final year of Inside the NBA, the network’s revered show for decades, headlined by Charles Barkley. Barkley said he plans to retire from television at the end of next season, which has been met with skepticism.
Like the rest of the NBA, Barkley should finally get some clarity on the situation by the end of Monday.
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