The high-profile showdown could land the parties in court and delay the outcome of the NBA’s broadcast rights for the foreseeable future.
Through our four-decade partnership with the NBA, we’re proud of how we’ve delivered best-in-class coverage to basketball fans. In order to maintain our long-term partnership, we have worked in good faith to provide strong bids that are fair to both parties, during special and non-special negotiation periods.
“We are waiting for the NBA to execute our new contract,” TNT added.
An NBA spokesman said the league has received the WBD proposal and is reviewing it.
The NBA could either contest or accept the proposal, meaning TNT would simply take over Amazon’s contract. If the league contests, as expected, WBD will have the option to sue the league.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
The NBA is poised to collect a monster windfall from ESPN, Comcast and Amazon in the new round, which will take effect after next season. According to media reports and people familiar with the deal, ESPN pays $2.6 billion a year for the NBA Finals, among other games; Comcast, which owns NBC, pays $2.5 billion for the regular season and playoffs. And Amazon will pay $1.8 billion for a smaller package that still includes the playoffs and some conference finals. (TNT’s public statement did not say whether it was specifically related to the Amazon deal.)
The league had a special negotiating window with its previous partners, Disney-owned ESPN and WBD-owned TNT, that ended in April, and has spent the past several months finalizing the new deal. But according to people familiar with the previous deals, those networks have what are known as back-end affiliate rights, making it difficult for the league or content provider to cut a media partner.
How strong those related rights are may be up for debate. The NBA hopes the WBD offer isn’t an exact match because its contract with Amazon is different. Amazon offers a streaming platform, and TNT is a cable network. And Prime Video has more subscribers than WBD’s streaming platform Max. At TNT, meanwhile, distribution details are lower than Amazon’s financial terms, which are believed to be related.
A person familiar with the negotiations said WBD has made several attempts to reach a new deal with the league, including taking a small fourth game package and also trying to partner Google’s YouTube in a joint fight against Amazon’s deal.
TNT has broadcast the NBA since 1989 and is the league’s longest-running media partner. He broadcasts the acclaimed “Inside the NBA” pregame and postgame show starring Charles Barkley, one of the most popular personalities in sports media. In recent months, Barkley has been critical of TNT after reports pointed to the network The NBA loses. “These guys that I work with have clearly torn this thing apart,” Barkley said. He told “The Dan Patrick Show” in May.