The latest turn in the relationship between Warner Bros. Discovery and the NBA is the prospect of the league carving out a fourth rights package that would allow WBD to maintain at least some ties.
Once regarded as a faint enough possibility to merit little mention, the ‘fourth package’ option has been mentioned — to varying degrees of depth — in The Wall Street Journal, Puck and Sports Business Journal in just the past week, and that is surely no coincidence. WBD executives “have signaled an openness” to a fourth package, per John Ourand of Puck, and one can assume the sources floating the possibility are coming exclusively from that direction, given the NBA’s apparent opposition to an additional deal.
For WBD, a fourth package is at this point the only way to keep some rights that are neither prohibitively expensive nor requiring legal remedies.
What would such a package entail? The NBA is not willing to pull game inventory from its top three packages, and understandably so. Absent that, the league will have to create new inventory out of nothing.
Per Ourand, one option may be to build a new package out of “a handful of teams’ local game rights.” This past season, NBA teams under contract with Diamond Sports Group were able to sell ten Bally Sports-produced games to local over-the-air affiliates in their respective markets. (That was part of a one-time agreement between the NBA and Diamond Sports that was supposed to result in all of Diamond’s RSN rights reverting to the NBA after the season, but was ultimately abandoned.) It is unclear whether the NBA or its teams could wrest back similar rights from Diamond, much less other RSNs, in the future — but that would be one way to fill a potential fourth package.
Assume that a fourth package consists of games pulled from Diamond Sports. Only half the league is under contract with Diamond, and that list does not include several of the highest-profile teams. If other, non-Diamond teams are included in the games, such as the Lakers (Spectrum SportsNet), Knicks (MSG) or Warriors (Comcast), the TNT broadcasts would surely be blacked out in those markets. There are only so many games that can air exclusively on or co-exist with national television, and there is little doubt that the top three packages will account for all of those. In essence, TNT would have an NBA package that is not much better than its Tuesday night MLB package, which largely consists of games subject to local blackout. (It is also worth wondering whether the Diamond-sourced feeds would be exclusive to TNT — which would be a boon for a fourth-tier “D” package — or merely co-exists.)
The regular season is one concern. It is almost impossible to imagine that the NBA has not already allocated its postseason inventory to its top three packages. Even the games currently carried by NBA TV have surely been doled out to one of ESPN, Comcast or Amazon. With all four rounds of playoffs at best-of-seven, the NBA is in no position to create more inventory. While there is good in having even just regular season NBA games, the postseason is where the league’s value is highest.
Thus what TNT would be bidding for in this scenario is a weekly night of regular season games — either featuring a limited number of teams or a slew of local blackouts — and zero in the postseason. Perhaps WBD could find a way to secure NBA All-Star Weekend in such a deal, as Puck reported last month that the league was still seeking “clarity” regarding rights to its midseason event, making it perhaps the only marquee event not firmly spoken for. In any case, WBD would continue its relationship with the NBA, but with sharply reduced inventory and — presumably — sharply reduced viewership. Perhaps that would be enough for TNT to maintain its current rates with distributors, though that seems hard to believe.
Beyond the above, it is unclear what other options are available to WBD. One Hail Mary — even by the standards of the fourth package, which is itself a Hail Mary — is some sort of joint agreement with one of the other partners. Amazon has been mentioned as a potential landing spot for TNT talent if WBD loses rights, and there has even been some speculation that Amazon could rely on TNT to produce its NBA telecasts, the same way that it has used NBC’s Sunday Night Football production team for its Thursday Night Football games. Perhaps in exchange for the use of TNT’s production team — including the Inside the NBA studio personnel — Amazon allows TNT to simulcast some of its regular season inventory and a handful of playoff games.
That is, to be clear, highly unlikely. Then again, there really is no ‘likely’ scenario in which WBD holds onto the rights at this point, beyond paying nearly $3 billion a year price for the “B” package it currently owns. The other suggestions — suing the league, matching Amazon’s “C” package or carving out a fourth — smack of desperation.
Though the fourth package discussion seems to be originating from the WBD side, the idea seems more beneficial for the NBA than for WBD. While the NBA is said to be concerned about watering down its other three broadcast deals, it does not seem likely that ESPN, Amazon or Comcast could be legitimately threatened by TNT airing one night a week of nonexclusive games. The concern about having too many outlets airing games is real, but runs a bit hollow in an era where even the NFL is spreading its content across as many outlets as possible. For a few extra hundred million a year — maybe even a billion if WBD is particularly desperate — these seem like risks worth taking. The NBA could in essence keep WBD (and its wildcard leader David Zaslav) at arm’s length while still counting it as a partner. Given the uncertain future of the media industry, there is surely some value to not leaving any money on the table.
If impractical to the point of borderline impossibility, it is easy to see why the ‘fourth package’ idea continues to surface. Ultimately, the motivations are compelling. For WBD and Zaslav, it appears that being able to say to distributors ‘we have X and Y’ is more important than the quality of the package. Consider the way it has touted deals for NASCAR races and College Football Playoff games that include minimal inventory. A proverbial “D” package would allow WBD to continue listing the NBA among its many other properties, even if the actual content of the package is lacking.
For the NBA, it is simply even more money to add to a massive rights deal, and one less headache to deal with — assuming, of course, that WBD’s next deal does not include any ‘matching rights’ this time.
Money. Money. Money. In a peculiar twist, WBD just took the French Open away from NBC. Loyalty…..lol.
Money rules.
Think about what NBA TV has now a small collection of non exclusive national games on say Monday night NBC it looks like has Tuesday Amazon got Thursday and Saturday ABC has Sunday NBC has Sunday night and ESPN has Wednesday and Friday a small collection of non exclusive Monday night or Maybe A few carved out around the conference tourneys and bowl week from ESPN. If The TNT Sports went to ESPN and paid 100,000 a year for games in December January around the college playoffs and March around conference tourney in basketball as well as a small collection of other games it could work
They may still be trying to be dance partners (WBD and the NBA), but listen: it’s over between them. The divorce is almost final. The NBA on TNT is a part of sports television history.
What would prevent Turner from going out and buying the local rights to a team or two and broadcasting those games. They could target a team under the Diamond / Bally umbrella. It would be much cheaper than paying the type of money the league would want while creating an inventory of games. One team in the eastern half the country and one in the west would be possible.
WTCG then WTBS had Braves baseball, WGN had the Cubs, WOR had the Mets at one time and were broadcast nationally.
Hard to interpret any of this with no dollar amount attached to it. Discovery’s history with sports (mostly the Eurosport networks) prior to WBD was basically “acquire properties with bargain basement numbers and do barebones coverage.” I think that mindset lends itself very well to being the clear fourth partner and taking a lot of non-exclusive inventory and putting it on national distribution. At that point you’re only negotiating against the (probably non-material) loss of League Pass subscriber revenue.
What we’re interested in is whether the Inside the NBA team is staying together. And if so, where?
The real question for me is, what is the holdup in these negotiations? If the NBA is 100% ready to move on with the ESPN/NBC/Amazon trio, why hasn’t it happened yet? Are they waiting for the end of the Finals or is WBD still thinking of giving in for the “B” package? This whole thing is dragging on endlessly for something that will get the NBA $76 billion.
To me I don’t get why ESPN can’t finalize the deal, since there’s no way WBD is touching that A Package, but the B And C packages I can understand a bit on the hold up since I believe that once the finals ends (either on Friday or next week) that the ESPN deal will be finalized and announced (and who knows if it will be immediately following the last game telecast this season)
Let’s be real here. No matter what happens, TNT is screwed. The best that could happen is somehow matching and getting the B package, but ridiculously losing the conference finals every other year. That sounds so asinine. The worst that could happen, besides losing the NBA altogether, is this crap. It’s not worth having.
Fire Zaslav! That’s what should’ve happened!
They could leverage the NBA TV rights to tnt so maybe non exclusive monday night games and a few Amazon simulcasts they can keep NBA TV to show G league Summer League FIBA games and the WNBA
I actually like that arrangement idea of having TNT and Amazon partner with each other on games, potentially simulcasting the Amazon games, so that linear viewers still have access to the games. There could still be some Amazon Prime exclusives, but I think arranging something with TNT would be best.
The NBA really should keep its relationship with Turner Sports going as a thank you for helping broadcast these games all of these years. Turner still runs NBA TV, NBA.com, and the most popular postgame show in sports next to The OT on FOX. A fourth rights package is definitely still worth it, in my opinion, but if they can partner with Prime that’d be great as well because I really don’t like the idea of too many games being streamed exclusively.
Jon, what always struck me about the WBD/NBA current package was the success/ratings viewership of its postgame show, essentially a top 5 or almost always a top 10 show on cable, in addition to the #1 cable show, the NBA game that preceded the post-game show. That is comparable to NBC and the Carson Late Night Show that contributed greatly to NBC’s bottom line. You might be on to something, regarding a possible arrangement between WBD & Amazon. During the playoffs, the post-game show regularly eclipsed the numbers of both ESPN and Fox College Football kick off shows. Do you think Zaslav was acutely aware of the post-game show as a separate entity, a highly successful show that would cease to exist without its NBA lead-in?
I think there’s some understanding of the value of Inside. But to be fair, the SVP SportsCenter can do pretty big numbers after important postseason games. I don’t know that Inside has much value independently of the games, so I don’t think I could look at it as a separate entity.
I think if Inside did have a value outside of the games, Turner would’ve done something with that wayyyy before now. A short run of offseason shows, or something remote during Covid when networks were desperate for content.
They did do that during COVID and the numbers were not good. Though a remote version of the show really isn’t the same thing.
Regarding All Star Weekend I would assume that the All Star Game goes to NBC since it is a marquee event that was part of the TNT current package and since the Finals will stay on ESPN/ABC one would assume that NBC bought the All Star Game to be part of the new “B” package. It doesn’t seem practical to keep it on cable or even streaming.
I think the All-Star games will kick off the Sunday Night Basketball portion of the season, so it’s a good bet those games will be on NBC.
Would that be after the Super Bowl or before then? (Since NBC could start airing games after its NFL coverage ends which would be after NFL wild card/divisional weekend way before February ever begins
No chance that NBC (or the NFL) wants their Sunday package to start until after the NFC/AFC championship Sunday. I expect a Feb 1, 2026 start for the NBA Sunday package (especially since the Pro Bowl is now a Sunday afternoon event), with NBC having the Super Bowl on Feb 8, 2026 but unsure if Feb 22 NBC would rather have tape delay Winter Olympics (from Italy Feb 6-22) in primetime or the NBA All-Star Game. Could see them rather punt out of it in Winter Olympics years?
Stick a fork in the NBA on TNT. It’s done!
Is it worth it for WBD just say they still have the NBA…..I DON’T THINK SO
A watered down package of those proportions not only would water down the much respected Inside the NBA studio show (its ratings would certainly fall). Charles might still find a way put of his contract depending on what such wording there is regarding his contract and these deals.