Warner Bros. Discovery faces a Monday deadline to match rival bids for national TV rights to the NBA.
In recent days, it's been reported that WBD isn’t interested in matching NBCUniversal’s $2.5 billion a season offer to the league, viewing it as too pricey given the amount of games.
However, reports have swirled that Warner will match the $1.8 billion-a-season bid put forth the NBA by Amazon.
This outcome received some cold water via sports media gadfly Bill Simmons, who has somehow emerged as a credible insider amid what has seemed like a slow-motion breakup between Warner’s longtime NBA incumbent, TNT Sports, and the league.
Simmons said over the weekend that Amazon has structured a poison pill requiring WBD to put three seasons worth of rights money, around $5.4 billion, into escrow if it wants to match Amazon's bid.
It doesn't seem like WBD has that kind of money laying around.
“We have continually stated our belief that WBD/Turner will not match and that their posturing to date has been a bluff,” LightShed Partners analyst Richard Greenfield wrote Sunday. “We believe Turner has already decided that the best financial move is to forgo the NBA going forward. In fact, recent licensing deals (sublicensing from Disney) for college football playoff content are a tangible sign that Turner is already in the process of replacing its NBA content.”
The NBA Board of Governors has already approved deals with The Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, NBCU and Amazon that start in the 2025-26 season.
If WBD doesn’t match bids from NBCU and Amazon, TNT Sports will end its 17-year run as a national home for the NBA after this upcoming 2024-25 season.
